The Gentle Axe pp-1

by R. N. Morris

  “He was an actor once, I believe,” said Porfiry.

  The doctor raised his eyebrows. He poured the liquid into a test tube, which he placed in a wooden rack. He turned briskly to the diener. “I will need sulfate of iron, solution of potassa, and muriatic acid.”

  The diener nodded and crossed to a cabinet. He brought the bottles over one by one. Using both hands to tilt and steady the first of them, Pervoyedov tipped out a small quantity of glassy pale green granules onto a circle of filtration paper. He held the paper over the test tube and tapped until one of the grains fell in. He waited for it to dissolve, then added a few drops of the solution of potassa. He stirred the contents with a glass rod, his gaze challenging the official witnesses. “Let us see if, in death, he has any talent for ventriloquism.”

  He unscrewed the cap of the last bottle and inserted the nozzle of a long pipette. Holding this over the test tube, he released a rapid drizzle of droplets.

  All at once, the contents of the test tube turned inky blue.

  “Well, there you have it,” said Dr. Pervoyedov. “Govorov speaks. Or rather, his stomach does.”

  The Lilac Stationery

  Porfiry Petrovich extinguished the cigarette and threw it behind him as the door to 17 Bolshaya Morskaya Street was opened. Stepping inside, he felt a sudden unpleasant taste rampage through his mouth, metallic and cloyingly sweet. It was so strong, he felt for a moment he would be sick.

  “What’s that? Something in the air?” he asked Katya.

  She looked at him neutrally. “We have been fumigating the mattresses. Marfa Denisovna has complained of being bitten.”

  “Fumigating? What do you use?”

  “Did you really come here to talk about fumigating methods?”

  “No. I came to talk to Anna Alexandrovna.”

  “Very well, I shall tell her you’re here.”

  Porfiry Petrovich admired the smooth curve of Anna Alexandrovna’s back as he followed her into the pale blue drawing room. There is something that surprises and saddens in every part of her, he thought.

  “May I offer you some tea?” As she turned to him, he saw that this quality was most concentrated in her eyes.

  Porfiry refused with a smile and a minute shake of his head. “I don’t wish to detain you any more than is necessary,” he said. “There are, however, one or two questions I must ask, in the light of some new evidence.”

  “New evidence?” Anna Alexandrovna’s hand shook as she set down the redundant glass.

  “Do you know a man called Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov?”

  Relief expanded Anna Alexandrovna’s beauty, chasing out the frown. She shook her head vehemently. She is relieved because she is able to answer honestly, thought Porfiry.

  “He was an associate of Stepan Sergeyevich’s,” explained Porfiry. “He is dead now. Murdered. Poisoned, I believe, by the administration of the same substance that killed Borya.”

  “But I thought Borya hanged himself? That’s what we read in the gazettes.”

  “That is what someone wished us to believe. Until recently I thought that person was Govorov. Now I must look for someone else.”

  “And you have come here to look?” Anna Alexandrovna’s alarm contained a note of remonstration.

  “I have some further questions, that’s all. I wish to understand, clearly, fully, the argument between Borya and Goryanchikov.”

  Porfiry noted Anna Alexandrovna’s flinch under the force of his uncompromising gaze.

  “You’ve asked me about this before. Why are you asking me again? I told you everything I knew then.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes!” Her neck flushed patchily with the heat of her insistence. Her instinct for defiance showed in her eyes. But she couldn’t hold the look.

  “What was Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov to you?” asked Porfiry abruptly.

  “A lodger,” she protested with outrage, then insisted: “He lodged in my house.”

  “And Borya?”

  “My yardkeeper.”

  “Is that all?”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “That the argument was about you.”

  “You are wrong.” Her response was calmer than he might have expected.

  Porfiry Petrovich bowed but kept his fluttering gaze fixed on her.

  “Stepan Sergeyevich…” began Anna Alexandrovna but lost heart. Her voice cracked.

  “The place where their bodies were found, in Petrovsky Park-”

  Anna Alexandrovna shook her head, tight-lipped, forbidding.

  Porfiry continued, “Last time we spoke, when I mentioned Petrovsky Park…”

  “What of it?”

  “I noticed…it was as if I had…”

  “What?”

  “I suppose the expression is ‘touched a nerve.’”

  “Is that so?”

  “What happened there, in Petrovsky Park?”

  “Is it really necessary to go into this?”

  “I’m afraid so. Please, there’s no need to be afraid of the truth. I realize…”

  “What do you realize, Porfiry Petrovich?”

  “These matters may be painful to you.”

  She answered him first with a narrowing of her eyes. “We went there once. In the summer. There was a performance in the open-air theater. We picnicked in the park beforehand.”

  “When you say ‘we’?”

  “Myself and my daughter, Sofiya Sergeyevna. Marfa Denisovna was with us.” There was a slight beat before she added, “And Osip Maximovich.”

  “I see.”

  “Vadim Vasilyevich was there too.” She added this hopefully.

  “Please. Tell me what happened.”

  “Borya.” Her voice was heavy as she said the name.

  “I see.”

  “Borya was there. That is to say, I think he must have followed us. He was not of our party. Or perhaps it was a coincidence, meeting him there like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “He was drunk. That is the only explanation there can be for his behavior.”

  “What did he do?”

  “We had set up the picnic in a slight dip in the land, a hollow surrounded by birch. The others had gone for a walk. I was tired. I stayed to read my novel. Borya suddenly appeared. From nowhere. He stumbled and almost fell on top of me. He…”

  “There is no need to be afraid. It can only help you if you tell the truth.”

  Anna Alexandrovna’s expression was momentarily outraged. “He declared feelings for me. He told me he loved me.”

  “And how did you react to his declaration?”

  “He was a yardkeeper!” Her eyes widened.

  “He was a man.”

  “Please.”

  “You rebuffed him?”

  “It was horrible! He was drunk. Am I to be the object of the yardkeeper’s drunken affections?”

  “Did anyone else see him?”

  “No. No! Thankfully.”

  “Can you be sure?”

  “I sincerely hope not.”

  “And what of Stepan Sergeyevich? Was he with you that day?”

  “No.”

  “Stepan Sergeyevich…” Porfiry repeated the name musingly. Anna Alexandrovna frowned. “Your daughter’s name is…?”

  “Sofiya.”

  “Sofiya Sergeyevna.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your husband, then, was Sergei?”

  “Sergei Pavlovich. What are you suggesting?”

  “Sergeyevna…Sergeyevich.”

  “This really is preposterous.”

  “The coincidence of patronyms is striking.”

  “It’s just a coincidence.”

  “Is it not true that your husband felt some obligation toward Stepan Sergeyevich? That’s why he had him come to live in the house, isn’t it?”

  “I really cannot answer for my husband.”

  Porfiry nodded decisively. “Do you think it possible that Stepan Sergeyevich taunted Borya about
the feelings he felt toward you? Could that have been the cause of the argument?”

  “I…” The angle of her averted face quickened his pulse.

  “Or were they rivals, perhaps?”

  “Please!” cried Anna Alexandrovna. “In one breath you are suggesting that he was my husband’s son, in the next that he was my lover.”

  Porfiry’s bow was very close to an affirmative nod.

  Suddenly, the double doors to the drawing room parted, revealing the portly, bespectacled figure of Osip Maximovich Simonov. His face was determined, antagonistic. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

  “Osip Maximovich,” gasped Anna Alexandrovna. “Thank God!” She rushed toward him as he came into the room. Her out-held hands came to nothing. She turned from him, almost chastened.

  “Sir, I demand an explanation,” said Osip Maximovich, and closed the doors behind him.

  “I am conducting an investigation into the murders of three people.”

  “And you suspect Anna Alexandrovna?”

  “It is important to establish the truth. You should know that, sir, as the publisher of philosophical works.”

  “Anna Alexandrovna is a respectable woman. You have no right to come here with your insinuating questions.”

  “How do you know my questions were insinuating? Were you listening at the door?” asked Porfiry with a smile that strained to be pleasant.

  “I am not a fool, sir. I can very well imagine the kind of filthy questions you were asking.”

  “Believe me, please, when I say that no one regrets the necessity of asking such questions more than I.”

  “Then do not ask them.”

  “I’m afraid it’s my job.”

  “It is not a job for a gentleman.”

  “Perhaps not. It is a necessary job, all the same.”

  “But to persecute Anna Alexandrovna!”

  A thought seemed to occur suddenly to Porfiry. “I wonder, Osip Maximovich, do you believe a gentleman would be capable of murder?”

  “There is no saying what any one of us is capable of, I am sure,” Osip Maximovich answered huffily. “It would be absurd to deny that murders have been committed by members of the gentry.”

  “But would a gentleman use an axe?” Porfiry’s tone was arch.

  “Wasn’t there indeed such a case recently? The student who took an axe to those sisters.”

  “But the axe is more a weapon we would associate with the peasantry, do you not agree? More the sort of weapon someone like Borya would choose?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I wonder what weapon a gentleman would choose. Or a gentlewoman, for that matter.”

  “I take it you have finished questioning Anna Alexandrovna. In which case, may I suggest that it is time that you left?”

  “I have one more question and a request. Anna Alexandrovna, do you have any idea how Borya came to be in possession of six thousand rubles?”

  “Borya? I do not-” Her eyes flitted in confusion. The color drained from her face. “I have no idea,” she added without conviction, her gaze plummeting.

  “He must have stolen it. It’s as simple as that,” said Osip Maximovich. He tried to flash reassurance toward her.

  Porfiry made no comment on this theory, except to say, “It is a lot of money.” He watched Anna Alexandrovna closely, noting her discomfiture.

  “Have you finished?” asked Osip Maximovich curtly.

  “Yes, except for my request. I would like Anna Alexandrovna to write something for me.”

  “You really do suspect her! Meanwhile the real murderer-”

  “What do you wish me to write?” asked Anna Alexandrovna. Although she spoke decisively, there was once again a fatalistic weight to her voice.

  “It really doesn’t matter. My only requirement is that you write it on your own personal stationery.”

  “Osip Maximovich,” said Anna Alexandrovna, placing a hand to her forehead. “Will you ring for Katya, please?”

  KATYA BROUGHT the paper on a wooden tray. Immediately Porfiry noticed that the stationery’s lilac shade matched exactly that of the envelope in which the six thousand rubles had been found.

  Katya’s step was brisk and disapproving. She did not look at Porfiry. In her wake, held back by her timidity but drawn despite it into the room, was a girl of about thirteen or fourteen. Porfiry saw the imprint of Anna Alexandrovna in her features. But youth made her beauty heedless.

  The girl rushed out from behind Katya toward her mother and cried, “Mamma!”

  “It’s all right, darling.” Anna Alexandrovna reached an arm around her daughter’s shawled shoulders. She stooped to kiss her forehead, then nodded firmly and released her.

  At Sofiya Sergeyevna’s entrance, Osip Maximovich turned his back and moved away to a window. He gave the impression of losing interest.

  Katya placed the tray on the low mahogany table from which Porfiry had once drunk tea. There was a pen and a pot of ink on the tray with the paper.

  “So I may write anything?” said Anna Alexandrovna, taking her seat on the sofa by the table.

  Porfiry bowed.

  “But I can think of nothing,” she confessed.

  “In that case, may I suggest, ‘Do you remember the summer?’” said Porfiry Petrovich.

  Anna Alexandrovna looked up at him questioningly but without reproach. She then looked to Osip Maximovich, only to find he still had his back to her. Her head bowed hesitantly, and she took up the pen. She handed the note to Porfiry. He studied it briefly before pocketing it.

  “And so this farce is at an end?” said Osip Maximovich, returning abruptly from the window. “You have all you need?”

  “I have all I need from Anna Alexandrovna,” confirmed Porfiry.

  “And what have you decided? Is it enough to have her arrested?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Not quite. I see. Not quite. And do you think it is enough, this ‘not quite’? Do you think it is good enough to justify this persecution?” Osip Maximovich didn’t wait for Porfiry to answer. “And while we are on the subject of your persecutions, would it be possible for me to request the return of the Proudhon translation that you confiscated from Stepan Sergeyevich’s room?”

  “I can’t return it yet. I haven’t finished examining it.”

  “What is there to examine? It is the translation of a philosophical text. What possible bearing could it have on the case?”

  “There are a number of discrepancies in it. Sections in the translation that do not occur in the original.”

  Osip Maximovich frowned angrily. “What do you know about discrepancies? What do you know about translating philosophy? It is impossible to do it literally. Stepan Sergeyevich had a genius for interpretive translation.”

  “Why is it so important to you to have it back?” asked Porfiry mildly.

  “Because it belongs to me!” exploded Osip Maximovich. “And I have found a translator for the rest of it. I wish to know how much Stepan Sergeyevich was able to complete before his death.”

  “I will return it to you as soon as I am able. But now I would like to talk to one other member of the household.”

  Marfa Denisovna heard the door to her apartment open and close. She didn’t look up from the cards but tightened her warty fingers around the pack.

  “So you have come to speak to me at last,” she said. There was something like a smile on the lipless gash of her mouth.

  “Do you know who I am?” asked Porfiry Petrovich.

  “You’re the one who asks questions.”

  Porfiry nodded. “My name is Porfiry Petrovich. I am an investigating magistrate. I am investigating the deaths of Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov and Borya the yardkeeper. As well as the death of another individual called Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov.”

  Marfa Denisovna moved the ace of diamonds up to the top.

  “How long have you been with the family, Marfa Denisovna?”

  The old woman chuckled.
“All my life.”

  “You were born a serf?”

  “Yes. I belonged to Sergei Pavlovich’s father’s estate.”

  “And you stayed on after emancipation?”

  “Where else would I go? Besides, I had my little Sonechka to look after.”

  “Sofiya Sergeyevna?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’d like to talk to you about Stepan Sergeyevich.” Marfa Denisovna nodded assent. “He owed your mistress money, didn’t he?”

  “It didn’t matter.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Marfa Denisovna’s hard little body jerked up and down in an overdone shrug.

  “It was only money. Some things are more important than money. So he was behind on his rent? But he would pay it when he was able.”

  “You suggest some kind of bond between Stepan Sergeyevich and Anna Alexandrovna.”

  Marfa Denisovna moved a row of cards, the eight of hearts down to the three of clubs, over to a nine of clubs. She turned over a jack of hearts.

  “Shall I tell you a story? My darling Sonechka loves it when I tell her stories. Babushka, tell me a story, she says. Even now that she is nearly grown.”

  “Yes, Babushka. Tell me a story,” said Porfiry, smiling.

  “There was once a young and handsome man of noble birth. He came from a rich family. The family owned nearly a thousand souls. One day the young man saw a beautiful girl washing clothes in the river. And as she worked the clothes in the river, it was as if she were wringing his heart in her hands. The young man came out from his hiding place, for he had been spying on her in secret. And he knew from the look on the girl’s face that his love was returned. But the girl was the daughter of one of his father’s serfs. Their love could not be. And yet it was. A child was born, a boy. They christened the baby Stepan. Then in the night, while his mother slept, baby Stepan was taken to the Foundling Hospital in St. Petersburg. Years passed. The young, handsome man grew older and moved to the city, away from the beautiful girl he had loved. Abandoned, her heart turned to stone. She continued to serve his family and even came to the city to serve him when his new, young wife bore him a baby girl. Remembering the baby that had been taken from her, she nursed that little darling as if she were her own. In the meantime, baby Stepan grew up, though not as much as he might have done! The sins of his parents were there for all to see in his little arms and legs. But he was a clever boy. As you might expect, his father being a clever man and his mother nobody’s fool. He had been left at the Foundling Hospital with a signet ring around his neck on a cord. There was a family emblem engraved on the signet ring. That was all that the clever boy needed. Well, a man now, though no taller than an infant, he tracked his father down. The father wept tears of regret and remorse and took in his son. Though to keep up appearances, he called him a lodger and said nothing to his young wife. And within a year of his long-lost son’s arrival, the father died, suddenly and quite mysteriously.” With an impatient shake of her head, Marfa Denisovna scooped the cards together. “It won’t come out!”