The Gentle Axe pp-1
Page 30
“What is it, Pavel Pavlovich?”
“She asked me to pray for his soul.” Virginsky dropped his hands, revealing the appalled confusion on his face. “For Osip Maximovich’s soul.”
Porfiry blinked his agitation. “And can you?”
“Can you?”
“I am a believer,” said Porfiry. “And yet I find it difficult to think of troubling God with that prayer.”
“I’ve tried. For her sake.” Virginsky lapsed into thought. He suddenly remembered something. “She gave me this.” Virginsky handed Porfiry a sealed envelope, addressed to one Yekaterina Romanovna Lebedyeva. The name seemed familiar to Porfiry, though he could not think from where. “It’s a letter to her mother that she has never sent.”
“This woman is her mother?” Porfiry’s voice sounded startled. He thought perhaps he could place the name after all.
“Apparently. Lilya carried the letter about with her always. She was holding it when he killed her. Perhaps it gave her strength, or hope…or something. She asked me to deliver it. I can’t. I can’t conceive of looking that woman in the eye.”
“I will take it,” said Porfiry, noting the address. “What will you do now?”
“I don’t know. I’ve written to my father. A different letter. Not the one you found.”
Porfiry nodded his approval. “Do you wish me to destroy that?”
Virginsky nodded.
Porfiry came out from behind his desk and held out his hand. Pavel Pavlovich took it. “This is a hard time,” said Porfiry. “A terrible time.
You need your father. You need to forgive him and to allow him to forgive you.”
Virginsky sighed deeply and looked away.
The address on the envelope was for an apartment building in Sadovaya Street. He tracked the Lebedyevs down to a frigid cellar. There was no door. The light seeped in through barely translucent half-windows cut off by the ceiling. There was a layer of ice on the walls.
Madame Lebedyeva lay in bed. As soon as he saw her-even before that, as soon as he heard her constant, almost mechanical keening-Porfiry knew for certain why her name had been familiar to him. This was the woman who had come to his chambers and given a statement declaring herself “guilty of everything.” Her husband, Lebedyev, sat close by. His face retained its air of protected dignity.
“Yekaterina Romanovna,” said Porfiry, aware suddenly of a dull ache in his chest. “I have something for you.” He crossed to the bed and held out the letter.
The woman did not look at him. She simply continued her endless cycle of lamentation. It rose and fell and shook her.
“It’s from Lilya,” Porfiry went on. “Your daughter.”
Yekaterina Romanovna broke off to declare, “I have no daughter.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry to say you’re right, at last. But you did have. Lilya is dead now.”
Yekaterina Romanovna struck her breast with a clenched fist.
“Dearest, dearest,” began Lebedyev. But he had nothing else to offer.
“Listen to me,” said Porfiry sternly. “Listen to the truth. It’s time you listened to the truth. She was murdered. As was her daughter, your granddaughter. By a man called Osip Maximovich Simonov.”
“No, sir!” protested Lebedyev, rising to his feet. He sat back down immediately. “Osip Maximovich is a gentleman. Retract that slander now, sir, or you will have to answer to me.”
“So you do know Osip Maximovich?” demanded Porfiry.
There was a sudden wail from the bed. Madame Lebedyeva began tearing at her face with her nails. Porfiry watched in horror as the blood broke through her cheeks. At last he stirred himself and lurched forward to restrain her. She was stronger than he expected. But he used his weight to wrestle her into stillness, pulling her hands away from her face. He could see from her eyes that she understood. The guilt that she had been waiting for had finally come to her.
“Osip Maximovich was to have been my son-in-law,” continued Lebedyev. “We had an arrangement. It was all decided. We were honored. And it would have been…the end of all our troubles. She had come to his attention. He-he was willing to condescend to take her hand. The hand of a foolish girl. And she-she threw it away! She, she, she…I cannot bring myself to speak of it.”
“Then allow me. She was raped by a man she trusted.”
“No! It was some boy, some filthy boy. Quite naturally Osip Maximovich broke off the engagement. Do you know how much he was going to pay us? And normally it is the bride’s family that must provide a dowry!”
“But he raped her,” insisted Porfiry.
Lebedyev shook his head violently. “Some boy, some filthy boy,” he repeated. “She was faithless. How could you expect a respectable gentleman like Osip Maximovich to marry a whore like that? She ruined this family!” raged Lebedyev, again rising from his seat only to fall back onto it. “Look what she did to her mother! Broke her poor mother’s heart! Shattered the balance of her mind! She is responsible for everything! I never touched a drop before that day. And now I have lost my position, lost everything…”
Yekaterina Romanovna’s wailing intensified. She screamed and writhed beneath Porfiry’s restraint. Eventually she calmed and looked into Porfiry’s face. Her expression was pleading but lucid. “I believed her. I always believed her. But I said nothing. That’s how I killed her. By my silence.”
Porfiry answered her with a fit of blinking. He threw the letter onto the bed and stood up. He crossed to Lebedyev and pulled him up by his lapels so that he could say into his face, which stank of vodka, “She was your daughter.” The former civil servant met this assertion with his usual mask of anaesthetized dignity. “Lilya Ivanovna. Ivanovna. Lilya Ivanovna,” continued Porfiry, stressing the patronymic. “Even if she was all that you accuse her of, she was still your daughter.” He released the man’s lapels. Lebedyev swayed but remained on his feet. “I am Titular Councilor Ivan Filimonovich Lebedyev. I have a position. I have standing. I have a reputation.”
“You have nothing,” said Porfiry.
Lebedyev frowned, as if he were struggling to understand Porfiry’s point.
Porfiry pushed him back into his seat and left. He heard Yekaterina Romanovna’s wailing begin with renewed force.
Prince Bykov rose to his feet as he saw Porfiry approach, gripping the rim of his fur-covered top hat tightly. Porfiry began coughing and fumbled automatically for his cigarettes.
Zamyotov was hovering in the background. Porfiry sensed the look of angry reproach on his face and did not take out the enameled case.
“Prince Bykov,” murmured Porfiry with a bow.
“Alexander Grigorevich informs me that the case is closed.” Prince Bykov spoke stiffly.
Porfiry deepened his bow, then rose slowly.
“But you haven’t found Ratazyayev?”
Porfiry met the prince’s anguish with a carefully judged smile. He cleared his throat and spoke with deliberate clarity. “I dearly wish we had. There are many questions I would like to put to him.”
“This is Russia. A man cannot simply disappear!”
“Even in Russia. Sometimes a man doesn’t want to be found. Perhaps that is the case with your friend. He is a consummate actor, after all.” Porfiry gave the prince a long, significant look.
Prince Bykov’s tone became accusatory: “You have given up on him.”
“All the requisite agencies and bureaus have been alerted. The image that you kindly provided has been circulated. However, I have to say, it would be better for your friend if we did not find him. He is, after all, an accomplice to murder, however unwitting the part he played.”
“Exactly! You must hunt him down. He must be brought to justice. He must be made to face up to what he has done. You must find him!”
“It is a question of resources, your excellency. And priorities.”
“Are you saying Ratazyayev is not a priority?”
“We may not find him today, or tomorrow, but if he ever comes to our notice a
gain, we will know him. Policemen have long memories. I have a long memory.”
Prince Bykov gulped in air, as if he had suddenly forgotten how to breathe. “What if he is dead? That man, the man who killed all those others, may have killed him.”
“We don’t know that.” Porfiry’s voice softened. His posture slumped a little, as if in defeat. “We have every right to hope that he is still alive.”
“But I will never see him again.”
“I advise you to forget about him,” said Porfiry.
“But how can I? Everywhere I go I am reminded of him.”
“Then leave St. Petersburg. Travel is often an aid to recovery in cases like this.”
“Switzerland,” murmured the prince distractedly. “We once talked of going to Switzerland together.”
“Wherever he is, I’m sure that he thinks of you-with warmth and affection.” Porfiry felt a sudden stabbing ache in his frontal lobe. “And love.” He allowed himself to blink. He couldn’t stop. He felt that he would never be able to stop.
Porfiry closed his eyes tightly and placed one hand over them. When he took his hand away and opened his eyes, he saw that the prince was gone. His fit of blinking had passed too.
He bowed again, to the empty space where the prince had stood. Without looking at Zamyotov, he went into his chambers.
Porfiry leaned his back against the closed door and finally took out his cigarette case. He busied himself in lighting a cigarette. The headache eased as quickly as it had come. He gazed across the room at the window. A low sun blinded him to the details of his chambers. All he could see was the cloud of exhaled smoke, a swirling trap for sunlight.
He tried to remember what day it was. He could not shake off the feeling that there was something he should be doing. And yet whatever it was, it was not as important to him as leaning against this door and watching the smoke from his cigarette.
The ash fell unheeded to the floor. Porfiry was absorbed in the shifting smoke, studying it as if it were a mystery that could be solved. When he had finished the cigarette, he squeezed the glowing tip, feeling its sharp heat between his thumb and forefinger, and strode away from the door. The room became visible to him, and he knew it was New Year’s Eve. Later, he would be expected at Nikodim Fomich’s house.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-fa710b-3f4f-2d40-e188-f3a1-ad0d-88bfa9
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 21.09.2013
Created using: calibre 1.3.0, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
R. N. Morris
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