The Gentle Axe

by R. N. Morris

  Porfiry pushed the bell on the desk. It gave a broken chime.

  A stubble-faced porter eventually appeared through an arch in one wall. He was wearing a grubby uniform undone to the belt, revealing a discolored vest. The porter assessed the two of them with an insolent expression. “A room for the hour, is it?”

  “How dare you!” shouted Salytov. The speed with which he attained his rage astonished even Porfiry.

  “We are looking for the boy Dmitri. It is police business. I am an investigating magistrate. This gentleman is a police lieutenant.”

  “What has he done, the little gypsy?”

  “Tell him we wish to give him his reward. From the tsar.”

  The slovenly man stirred himself into a frown and then roared, “Dima!” without taking his eyes off Porfiry.

  In an aside to Salytov, Porfiry murmured, “Please, Ilya Petrovich. Remember he is a child.” To Salytov’s look of startled outrage, he added, “There is nothing to be gained from scaring him.”

  Salytov shook his head in angry impatience.

  “You mentioned a reward,” said the porter, an unpleasant eagerness in his eyes.

  “For Dmitri, yes,” insisted Porfiry.

  The porter countered this detail with a cynical leer. “Leave it with me, your excellencies, and I will make sure that he gets it. There is no need for your excellencies to be inconvenienced. You could be here all day hanging around for that wastrel.”

  “You want his reward? I’ll give you his reward!” Salytov closed in on the porter with a raised hand. Although he was protected by the desk, the porter backed away from the policeman’s threatening advance. He flashed a quizzical appeal toward Porfiry and shouted for “Dima” again, this time embellishing the diminutive with abuse.

  A moment later the boy’s face peered out from the archway. It was every bit as filthy as the last time Porfiry had seen it. He had a grimy pillbox hat pushed back on the crown of his head. His eyes widened when he saw Porfiry, and it looked for a moment as if he might make a run for it.

  “Ah, Dmitri, my friend! How good to see you again! I have something for you—from the tsar himself.” Porfiry held up a shiny silver ruble. It drew the bellboy out into the open. But just as Dmitri reached for it, Porfiry closed his fist around the coin.

  “It’s not gold. It’s silver,” said Dmitri dismissively.

  “Ah, but it’s freshly minted—just for you. It has the tsar’s picture on it.”

  “Give it to me then.”

  “You’ve almost earned it. If only you hadn’t run away when we were talking before, it would be yours already. Why did you run away, my friend? There was nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I wasn’t scared.”

  “Then why did you run away?”

  “You ask too many questions.”

  “It’s my job.” Porfiry took out and lit the cigarette he had put off smoking in the drozhki. Dmitri’s watchful envy inspired him to offer the boy the case. Dmitri took a cigarette eagerly and sucked in his cheeks as Porfiry lit it for him.

  “Turkish?” he asked with his first, delayed exhalation.

  Porfiry nodded. “You like it?”

  Dmitri shrugged.

  “We were talking about the yardkeeper, remember? When you delivered your message to the dwarf Goryanchikov, you called in at the yardkeeper’s shed. Did Govorov give you a message for him too?”

  Dmitri bit the inside of his mouth. “He gave me a note, yes.”

  “So? Why not tell me that before?”

  Dmitri held the cigarette between thumb and forefinger and studied the glowing ash. “Dunno.” He took a long draw. “Something he said, maybe” came out with the smoke.

  “What did he say?”

  “It was nothing really.” Dmitri steadfastly refused to look Porfiry in the eye.

  “Yes, I’m sure you’re right. It’s bound to be nothing. A pity. If it proved to be useful…”

  “‘Be careful with it.’”

  “‘Be careful with it’?”

  “That’s what he said. ‘Be careful with it.’”

  “Anything else?”

  The boy shrugged. “It was the way he said it. His smile. The way he looked at me.” The boy shuddered at the recollection. In that moment, and in the distant narrowing of his eyes, he seemed curiously ageless, beyond all consideration of age, as if he were remembering something that had happened a hundred years ago. “It sent a shiver down my spine.”

  Porfiry pursed his lips. He glanced quickly to Salytov for a reaction. The policeman was frowning thoughtfully. “Interesting,” conceded Porfiry.

  “So do I get it now?” Dmitri held out his hand.

  Porfiry winked and produced the silver ruble. He reasoned that he would not get much more out of the boy on the promise of the coin alone. “You’ve done well. The tsar will be pleased.” He handed over the prize.

  Dmitri flashed a proud glance around, but seeing the grubby porter, his expression became wary. He hurried the coin into a pocket. “Do you know the tsar?” he asked Porfiry.

  “Not personally. But I will communicate your cooperation to my superior, and he will communicate it to his superior, and so on until it reaches the tsar. I am confident he will be pleased.”

  “He’s playing with you, you little fool,” sneered the porter suddenly.

  “I assure you, that’s the way the system works,” said Porfiry, blinking calmly. “His Imperial Majesty’s gratitude—or displeasure—is passed back down.” He lowered his head to menace the porter with significance. “It could be a beating as easily as a coin.” Porfiry turned to Dmitri with a smile. “Now, my friend, there is one more thing I would ask you to do for me. I would like you to show us the room that Govorov occupied.”

  Dmitri drew from his cigarette with a manly grimace. “We’ll need a candle,” he said.

  VIRGINSKY SCANNED Gorokhovaya Street as he came out of Friedlander’s. He couldn’t see the tramp. But it was getting dark, and the air was thick with swirling snow. It was difficult to see anything. He had the sense, however, that the man was out there somewhere waiting for him. Perhaps he was one of the vague shapes huddled around the yardkeepers’ fires that punctuated the pavement on both sides of the street.

  Virginsky’s stomach growled painfully. Big snowflakes streamed toward his eyes, hungry for his tears.

  He started walking south. His new boots served him well on the slippery surface. He felt them grip but also sensed within his step the heart-lurching point at which they would fail him, and he measured his gait to stay the right side of it. Then, as a closed carriage passed him heading in the opposite direction, he turned sharply back on himself and ran in its lee. He was exhilarated by his ability to stay upright. He surprised himself by the maneuver but was comforted by it all the same, not merely because the carriage sheltered him from the weather. If the tramp was still on the other side of the street, the moving vehicle would act as a further blind, in addition to the nascent blizzard. As he came to the first corner, he turned right into Morskaya Street. The carriage continued straight on. Virginsky ran a few more paces and then abandoned himself to a slide that took him, arms windmilling, a couple of sazheni along the pavement. His arms came up, and he ducked into a quick walk, casting a single glance over his shoulder.

  With the same impulsiveness that had prompted him to turn on his heels in Gorokhovaya Street, he suddenly lurched toward the door of a shop. He did not look at the name of it and had formed no clear impression of what it sold.

  There was a smell of new felt and cologne, which had to it an elusive familiarity. He had been here before, once, a long time ago. In fact, his last visit to the German hat shop on Morskaya Street had been soon after his arrival in St. Petersburg. In those days his own apparel was equal to the expensive hats on display. It had seemed the most natural thing in the world to hold his head high as a shop assistant measured its circumference. Then he had inspected the shop’s wares as if they already belonged to him, and he had not been a
fraid to look himself in the eye in one of the many looking glasses. His face beneath a German topper had not struck him as preposterous. Far from it. He had bought the hat, though it was long since hocked, the pledge surrendered.

  Now the mirrors crowded in on him oppressively. He flinched away from them as if from a public shaming. And to try on one of the hats would have been as impossible as to dance on the ceiling.

  Virginsky moved far enough into the interior to be partially hidden from the street, but not so far that he could no longer look out through the window of the door. He was anxious also to avoid the attention of the shop walker. Fortunately, the staff all seemed to be busy with other customers.

  He didn’t have long to wait before the tramp shuffled into sight. In fact, the man’s sudden appearance on the pavement outside the shop took him by surprise. He had not had time to prepare himself for what now confronted him: an unimpeded view of the other’s profile. The greatest shock was that he did not recognize the face. It was certainly not his own. This was so unexpected that he stared blankly at the man, scarcely believing that it was the same tramp. He looked down at the stranger’s feet for confirmation. He was still wearing the old felt boots. But Virginsky noticed he now had a pair of good rubber galoshes over them.

  The man hesitated briefly on the pavement almost directly in front of Virginsky, casting searching looks up and down Morskaya Street. It seemed it did not occur to him to look inside the German hat shop. It was clearly inconceivable to connect the object of his search with the interior of such an establishment. The man moved on. Once again his speed and purpose impressed Virginsky.

  “Can I help you?”

  Virginsky turned. A sleek, elegantly dressed man of around thirty stood before him. He tilted his head back so that he could look down at Virginsky more effectively.

  Virginsky thought of all the things he could say to the fellow as he took in the details of his appearance, the long oiled hair that curled solidly at his collar, the crisp black frock coat, beneath it the taut waistcoat, as glistening and bright as a polished mineral, and the finely tapered, beetle-black shoes. Everything was sharp and unassailable, a hostile elegance, even the needle-scent of his perfume.

  “I bought a hat here once,” said Virginsky, putting as much defiance as he could into the claim.

  The shopman disdained to comment but pivoted backward at the waist, as though reeling from the words.

  “My father is a landowner,” blurted Virginsky. He bowed his head and left the shop, burning with a hotter, deeper shame than he had ever known.

  DMITRI LED THEM down the dingy corridor. It was so narrow, they were forced to proceed in single file. Uninvited, the ragged porter brought up the rear. There was a watchful stupidity to his expression. His heavy-lipped mouth hung open. He evidently didn’t want to miss anything.

  It was hardly a room at all, just an odd bit of space left over after the construction of the rest of the hotel, an airless cell crammed into the last corner beneath the stairs. The door had a corner cut out of it to accommodate the sloping ceiling. Dmitri’s candle showed up the grime that lay over everything. The wallpaper was yellowish, though it seemed more likely that it owed its color to age than to any printing process. There seemed to have once been a pattern to it. The single bed almost filled the floor space. Next to it a wooden stool doubled up as a bedside table. There were more candles on a dark, oversize chest. Dmitri lit them from his own candle.

  “Who’ll pay for those?” demanded the porter.

  “You may present me with a bill. I will pass it on to the chief of police for approval,” answered Porfiry.

  “The chief of police!” scoffed the porter excitedly. But seeing the seriousness of the others, including the boy, he became discouraged and sullen.

  Porfiry handed a candlestick to Salytov and took one himself. The two of them examined the room closely. Porfiry looked under the bed, where, unsurprisingly, he found a thick drift of dust. In places, it seemed, the dust had adhered into heavy clumps. Porfiry removed one glove and tested one of these clumps with a fingertip. It was not dust after all.

  Porfiry rose to his feet stiffly, with a pinch of the substance between his thumb and forefinger.

  “What is it?” asked Salytov.

  Porfiry sniffed it. “I can’t say for certain, but I think it’s horsehair.”

  “Horsehair?”

  “Yes.”

  Salytov sank down onto his knees to take a look beneath the bed himself. Porfiry turned to Dmitri. “Is there anything you can remember, any detail at all, that struck you as odd, from the time that Govorov was staying in this room? Did you hear any cries, for instance?”

  Dmitri shook his head.

  “Did Govorov ask for anything? Did he eat? Did you bring food to his room?”

  “Yes, he ate. Of course he ate.”

  “What did he eat? Can you remember?”

  “Veal. Hors d’oeuvres. Tea.”

  “Did he ask for anything else?”

  Dmitri thought for a while. “He didn’t want vodka. I asked him if he wanted vodka, and he said no.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Porfiry. He gave Salytov, who was now back on his feet, an inquiring glance.

  Salytov nodded pensively. “Yes, I would not have had our Govorov down as an abstemious gentleman,” he confirmed.

  “Perhaps he brought his own vodka?” suggested Porfiry. “Let’s see,” he began to recap. “He declined the vodka but accepted the veal—even though this would have been within the Christmas fast, would it not?”

  Dmitri nodded.

  Porfiry continued: “Obviously not a strict observer of the Faith.”

  “Who is these days?” said Salytov. “Besides, I am surprised you expect a murderer to observe the fasts.”

  “We don’t know he is a murderer,” said Porfiry with a provocative smile.

  “It’s all we have,” said Dmitri abruptly. “If you don’t eat veal, you don’t eat here.”

  “We’ve never had any complaints,” said the porter aggressively.

  “And there was nothing else?” pressed Porfiry.

  “Only veal and hors d’oeuvres,” said Dmitri.

  “I meant anything else at all out of the usual.”

  “Well,” said Dmitri, letting out a huge sigh and frowning thoughtfully. “He did ask for a needle and thread. And a pair of scissors too.”

  “Ah!” cried Porfiry. “That is interesting. Was this after Goryanchikov had joined him or before?”

  Dmitri’s expression was blank.

  “The dwarf,” prompted Porfiry.

  “Oh, the dwarf was here. It was because the dwarf needed a patch in his suit.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s what he said. He said, my friend needs to patch his suit.”

  “So it was Govorov who made the request? Did you see Goryanchikov—the dwarf—at this point?”

  “No. He was inside the room. The gentleman came out to speak to me. He kept the door closed behind him.”

  “That is very interesting. And it could be significant. Ilya Petrovich, do you remember a patch on Goryanchikov’s suit?” Porfiry asked.

  Salytov shook his head.

  “Neither do I. Let us look at the bed, for a moment,” continued Porfiry. He pulled off the coarse blanket and gray sheets and threw them on the floor.

  “Do you mind!” objected the porter.

  Porfiry ran a finger along the seam of the mattress. “It’s been sewn up,” he said. “Rather badly, by the looks of it.” He picked at the large stitches with his nails. They unraveled easily. Salytov, Dmitri, and the porter, each holding a candle, pressed in at his shoulders, craning to see what he was doing.

  “Please be careful not to set fire to the bed,” pleaded Porfiry drily. “You may destroy vital evidence.”

  Porfiry pulled out a length of thread and folded back the corner of the mattress covering. There was a chorus of gasps behind him.

  Inside the mattress, lying fla
t on top of the horsehair wadding, was a small fur coat suitable for a child. The arms were folded over neatly, reminiscent of a corpse laid out in a coffin.

  Porfiry opened his cigarette case. He took one out and put it in his mouth. There were eight left. These he gave to Dmitri.

  19

  Govorov Returns

  PORFIRY SAW PRINCE BYKOV before Prince Bykov saw him.

  The young nobleman was sitting on one of the chairs outside Porfiry’s chambers. His expression was pained but patient, self-consciously stoical. With one hand he fondled his fur-covered top hat as if it were a lapdog.

  Why is he here? thought Porfiry. But the desperate neediness in the prince’s eyes was clear, even from a distance. He came to the police station because he was compelled to. It was the last link he had with his vanished friend.

  Porfiry experienced a mild spasm of guilt, the kind that comes when one is reminded of a duty deliberately ignored. But there was a kind of arrogance to his presence too, an aristocratic failure of imagination. Such a man was evidently incapable of understanding that Porfiry had anything better to do than investigate the causes of his unhappiness.

  Porfiry was about to turn on his heels when he heard his name called out.

  The clerk Zamyotov had seen him. At his loud, piercing “Porfiry Petrovich!” Prince Bykov looked up.

  Porfiry blinked several times and squeezed his lips into a smile.

  The prince rose to his feet, his hat in one hand, the other extended vaguely as if to grasp something.

  “My dear prince,” said Porfiry, walking briskly over to him as if he could not be more delighted to see the prince. “How opportune it is that you should present yourself here! There is an important question I must ask you.”

  Prince Bykov tossed his head so that the dark tight curls at his collar shook. Confusion, and the effort of thinking it through, gave his face an antagonistic edge.

  “Please.” Porfiry held open the door to his chambers for the prince. “We have been pursuing a very significant lead.”