A Razor Wrapped in Silk

by R. N. Morris

  Virginsky did not attempt an answer.

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Porfiry, meeting a point that had not been raised. ‘That begs an interesting question. Would God choose to work His miracles through a non-believer? Indeed, would that not produce more compelling evidence of his existence, at least for the non-believer concerned? But I ask you, is God really in the business of proving or disproving his own existence?’

  ‘You know my opinions on the subject of God.’

  ‘At any rate,’ continued Porfiry, as if he had not heard Virginsky’s terse interjection, ‘my father could not fail to believe in his own gift, however inconvenient and possibly even frightening it was for him to do so. People would come to our house, peasants for the most part. They would present themselves at the tradesmen’s door. My father would have them come in, take them to his study and sit them down. He would talk to them quietly and calmly. And at the end of ten minutes’ chat about the harvest, or the frost, or whatever newfangled machinery their master was intending to introduce, he would lay his hands on their afflicted area, and they would go away somewhat eased in their pain.’ Porfiry gave a chuckle. ‘He was deeply loved. Many hundreds came to the funeral, all the old peasants whose stiff joints he had loosened. He knew his limitations and that was his secret.’ After a pause he added: ‘It’s difficult to live up to such a father.’

  ‘I’m sure he was proud of you.’

  ‘No. I am sure that he was not. And I don’t blame him. At the time of his death, I was not a son to be proud of. I was young, a student of law like you once were, at the university here in Petersburg. I was living beyond my means. You could say I had fallen in with a bad lot, or perhaps I was the bad lot others had fallen in with. At any rate, I spent my leisure time in expensive dissipation. My letters home were a constant stream of reproaches, relieved only by selfish and manipulative demands for money.’

  Virginsky cast a quick sidelong glance at Porfiry but said nothing.

  ‘There was one among my fellows who happened to come from Pinsk, which is near to my home village of Dostoeve. I would not say he was a friend of mine. It was merely the accident of originating from the same region that threw us together. He was a strange individual and it was unnerving to be in the same room as him, especially alone. He had a way of looking at you and not looking at you at the same time. But more than that he awoke a powerful frisson of unease in me, almost a revulsion. Perhaps this was my own debased version of my father’s gift in operation. My father traced his family to Siberia, you know. Sometimes it amuses me to imagine a tribal shaman amongst our ancestors.’

  ‘I have no doubt of it,’ said Virginsky wryly.

  ‘This fellow student of mine was the son of the local priest and had heard about my father. He seemed fascinated by my father and would often ask me questions about him. To my shame, I saw this as an opportunity to vent my spleen over what I saw as my father’s unjustified parsimony. “So your father is a wealthy man?” he would ask. “Oh, yes. He has pots of money,” I think I may even have replied.’

  Virginsky bowed his head, tactfully silent.

  ‘Well, something unpleasant happened at the university, a disciplinary matter, and he was expelled. He returned to his home village. Soon after, he made a point of seeking out my father. He pretended some affliction, knowing this would gain him admittance. But it was he who laid hands upon my father. He strangled him. I imagine that as he tightened his grip around my father’s neck he demanded to know where the money was hid. He may even have said something like, “I know you have money. Your son told me.”’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Well, there was no money. My father’s fears concerning his career had proven true. His superiors, learning of his healing activities, had presented him with an ultimatum. Give up the charlatanry, as they termed it, or give up his position. Of course, there was more to it than disapproval of his miraculous gift, which they claimed brought the department into disrepute. Professional jealousy played a part too. My father tried to stop, he really did. But the people kept coming to him, and how could he turn them away? This was the excuse his enemies needed and he was relieved of his post.’

  They had come to Stolyarny Lane. The corner of the department building was like the prow of a ship breaking through the mist. The two men instinctively halted beneath it, allowing Porfiry to finish telling his story.

  ‘His dismissal had occurred months before the visit from my murderous fellow student. My father had not informed me of his change in fortune, out of pride, or perhaps for fear of worrying me. When I returned for his funeral, I found the letters I had written placed neatly in a drawer in his study. I was never able to ask his forgiveness. I stole them away and burnt them, in my shame. The boy who had killed him was easily caught and quickly confessed. It was not about the money, not really. His fascination with my father had crossed over into a dangerous obsession. He believed, or so he claimed, that my father’s gift came from the devil and that a voice had told him to kill him. As is often the case, he seems to have been driven by a whole range of motivations, some of which contradicted others. He was exiled to Siberia, ironically the source of my father’s powers, and has no doubt grown old in a labour camp.’

  There was a moment of silence. Virginsky’s expression, though, was strained with impatience. There was evidently something on his mind. ‘Porfiry Petrovich, what did you mean earlier when you talked about your own version of your father’s gift?’

  ‘I can always tell.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The killers. As soon as I meet them. I experience the same frisson. It was like that with the student Raskolnikov. Of course, being a rationalist like my father, I do nothing until I have gathered the evidence.’

  ‘You once suspected me of murder.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘You arrested me.’

  Porfiry looked up at the department building. ‘Shall we go inside? We have work to do.’ It was a moment before he led the way inside.

  *

  In the days following, autumn took hold in earnest. The shifting mists that chased along the canals became bolder. They filled the parks and avenues with a weightless flood, and bound the days together under a fine mesh of monotony. The city was concealed in layers of lace. Another city took its place, a city of imagined buildings and inhabitants, of voices disembodied from their speakers, of footsteps without feet, of ghostly carriages and phantom houses. This was a city in which secrets loomed larger than palaces, in which an unaccustomed licence was suddenly at large. It was now possible to smoke in the street without provoking a policeman’s reprimand. This was a city, in short, in which anything was possible. Whatever man could imagine, for good or evil, could take shape in the St Petersburg fog.

  Aglaia Filippovna continued to drift in and out of a coma, almost as if there were some link between her and the fog, as if the fog were claiming her for one of its own. On one occasion, alerted to her return to consciousness, Porfiry and Virginsky hurtled dangerously through the enshrouded streets to the palace on the Fontanka, but by the time they got to her, Aglaia Filippovna was in the throes of an epileptic seizure.

  Princess Naryskina was once again in attendance. Indeed, it seemed as though she had not moved from her position by the bed. Her gaze was lit by the same static energy, which seemed to feed off the spasms and distress of the invalid.

  It seemed to Porfiry that the disease was another, stronger being that had taken possession of Aglaia. He thought of a dog he had once seen shake a rat to death in its jaws. He imagined the disease as an invisible predator, and the poor frail girl as the prey caught between its teeth.

  After the fit had passed, she slept, under the weight of a tremendous exhaustion. She came to briefly an hour or so later, but Dr Müller forbade them from mentioning the death of Yelena Filippovna, for fear of provoking a further attack. She seemed to have no recollection of the events of the night of the benefit gala and spoke of her sister in the present tense, a
s if still alive.

  ‘Where is Yelena? Why does she not come to see me?’

  ‘You must rest now.’

  Aglaia Filippovna wrenched herself upright, then fell back more exhausted than before. She closed her eyes and they thought that they had lost her again. But her hands fidgeted convulsively on top of the counterpane. She enclosed the thumb of her right hand inside the fist of her left and twisted her hands against one another, as if she were turning a screw at the base of her thumb. Her voice throbbed faintly, her lips barely moving. ‘Yelena is to be married, you know.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To her dashing officer of the Guards. Captain Mizinchikov.’

  ‘I think you are mistaken, Aglaia Filippovna.’

  Dr Müller shook his head warningly at Porfiry.

  ‘It is all arranged. He has no money but she loves him. Love will find a way. I am happy for her.’ Still she kept up the twisting motion with her hands. Then suddenly they fell lifelessly apart. The smile froze on her lips and slackened into a curve of enervated distaste.

  ‘Aglaia Filippovna?’

  They got no more out of her that day.

  *

  Prince Sergei was waiting for them in the corridor outside Aglaia’s room. Or at least he appeared to have been waiting. The possibility came readily to Porfiry’s mind that he had been eavesdropping. He had the skulking disposition of an eavesdropper.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She remembers nothing,’ said Porfiry. His face was grave, even forbidding. A single blink sealed his thoughts as he scrutinised the prince. ‘She believes her sister is still alive.’

  ‘W-would that she were!’ His flitting gaze chased along the moulded curlicues of the wall, before coming back to settle on Porfiry. ‘Aglaia Filippovna will have to be told.’

  ‘Dr Müller advises against it, for now at least. Her constitution is very delicate. She has been able to take in very little nourishment between her bouts of unconsciousness. And her epilepsy exacts a terrible toll on her.’

  ‘But she c-cannot live out a lie!’ There was an unexpected force to his protest. ‘How are we to maintain such a pretence? What if she asks to see Yelena? What if she insists?’

  ‘It will not be easy. But neither will it be indefinitely. Dr Müller will notify us when he considers that she has regained strength sufficiently to be told the news. In the meantime, she needs to rest. Is it convenient for her to stay here at the palace?’

  ‘Of c-course. We would not have her taken anywhere else. We will ensure she is well c-c-cared for.’

  ‘That is very … kind of you.’

  ‘It is no more or less than our c-Christian duty. Besides, she is my sister-in-law. That is to say, she would have been, if Yelena and I had married.’

  Porfiry thought of the words Yelena had written to Captain Mizinchikov.

  I do not love Naryskin. The idea of loving Naryskin is absurd. Naryskin is absurd.

  ‘She asked you to kill her, but you refused. Instead you asked her to marry you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she accepted your proposal, willingly, with a free heart?’

  ‘Of c-c-course!’

  ‘But still she prevailed upon Captain Mizinchikov to kill her?’

  ‘Either that or he k-killed her out of jealousy. She had rejected him in my favour.’

  ‘She rejected him as a husband but chose him as a murderer. Who should be jealous of whom, I wonder?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘She chose him to carry out this momentous deed!’

  ‘But she had asked me to do the same. I had no c-cause for jealousy on that account, although I must say, I find your … argument c-c-convoluted and repugnant.’

  ‘I am sorry if this line of enquiry offends you. However, this is an unusual situation, to say the least. A murder victim who solicits her own murder. Did she ask any other men to kill her, do you know?’

  ‘You really are an outrageous individual.’

  ‘Perhaps she was as promiscuous in her desire to die as she seems to have been in her desire for physical intimacy.’

  For a moment it seemed that Prince Sergei would strike Porfiry. In the end he let out a fragmented groan of denial.

  ‘The signal honour that she conferred upon you, in asking you to kill her, was surely debased in your eyes by the fact that she made the same request of Mizinchikov.’

  ‘Honour? What k-k-kind of honour is it to be c-called upon to k-k-kill the woman one loves?’

  ‘Let us say privilege, then. A murder committed under such circumstances would be no common murder. It would itself be a declaration of love. She had set the ultimate test. Perhaps one could say that you were not up to it and Captain Mizinchikov was.’

  ‘If so, I am glad that I failed her in that.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘I do not see what you aim to achieve with this unpleasant c-c-questioning. Are you suggesting that I am in some way involved in Yelena’s death?’

  ‘Not at all. I am merely trying to understand the situation fully. Do you believe that Captain Mizinchikov loved Yelena?’

  ‘She certainly did not love him.’

  ‘That is not what I asked. But even so, how do you know?’

  ‘She … told me so.’

  ‘I see. In a letter, by any chance?’

  Prince Sergei flushed but did not answer.

  ‘But he loved her? May we establish that?’ insisted Porfiry.

  ‘In his own c-crude and brutish way, yes.’

  ‘If so, and if he did kill her at her request, how could he bear to go on living? Surely the only way a man, a passionate man – am I to take it that is what you mean by crude and brutish? – the only way he could bring himself to c-c-contemplate such a deed was if he had also resolved upon his own destruction, or should I say self-destruction?’

  ‘Do you mock me, sir?’

  ‘Mock you?’

  ‘You affected to stammer.’

  ‘I assure you I had no intention of … you must forgive me. If it’s true, I am mortified.’

  ‘Your c-c-colleague will c-confirm what I say.’

  Porfiry turned to Virginsky in desperate appeal. ‘You did seem to stumble over a consonant, Porfiry Petrovich.’ The younger magistrate winced apologetically but could not disguise his enjoyment of Porfiry’s discomfiture.

  ‘If indeed that is true, then believe me that it was out of sympathy and not a desire to mock. It was an unconscious slip. The mind plays tricks on us. My mind is especially prone to do so. I meant nothing by it at all. Except …’

  ‘Except what?’ demanded Prince Sergei.

  ‘Except perhaps, in my mind, I was merely registering the particular consonant that most commonly causes you difficulty. My mouth, perhaps, betrayed my thoughts. There is no more significance to it than that.’

  ‘But why think it in the first place?’

  ‘One cannot always curb the direction one’s thoughts take. I will also say in my defence that I was conscious of a desire to smoke. Distracted by the need and yet feeling myself unable, here in the palace … Well, when I am not able to smoke I find that I have a tendency to do absurd things. I am a deeply absurd person. Without the mitigating influence of tobacco I would be even more absurd.’

  ‘Why do you say that? Why absurd?’

  ‘If I have unwittingly given offence again, I apologise. I couldn’t have known. How could I have known?’

  ‘How c-could you have known what?’

  ‘That she mocked you. Your stutter. That she called you absurd.’

  ‘Why do you persecute me like this? I am not her k-killer. Mizinchikov is her k-k-killer.’

  Porfiry hesitated a moment before replying: ‘Ah yes. Captain Mizinchikov. Is it possible, do you think, that he might have refused to kill her in the same way that you did? That such a refusal also prompted from him a proposal of marriage? Perhaps he too hoped to save her from herself by marrying her.’

  ‘Now you accuse me
of a want of originality!’

  ‘And so, because he would not kill her willingly, perhaps she saw the need to goad him into killing her. Could it be that she saw her engagement to you in that light?’

  ‘Have you any c-c-conception how offensive that insinuation is? That she would c-consent to be my wife merely to provoke another man into k-k-killing her!’

  ‘Perhaps she was playing you and Captain Mizinchikov off against each other. Ultimately, we may suppose that she did not care who killed her. In the same way that she did not care whom she married.’

  ‘How do you dare to presume such things?’

  ‘It is my unfortunate duty to presume far worse.’

  ‘Your duty, sir, is to find Mizinchikov and charge him with the murder of Yelena Filippovna. He is of c-c-course a deserter from his regiment now. That is enough, surely, to c-c-confirm his guilt.’

  ‘Confirm? I don’t know about that. It certainly would be better for Captain Mizinchikov if he came forward to clear his name. But then again, perhaps he is unable to come forward. If he is the romantic gentleman I take him to be, it is not out of the question that he has taken his own life by now. He may not have done it immediately after killing Yelena. Perhaps he was overwhelmed by panic, and fled. Only later did he realise the full enormity of his crime. That is to say, the significance of the crime to him. Life, his life, no longer contained the woman he loved, even as an object of his hatred. How could he endure that?’

  ‘I c-c-cannot answer for c-Captain Mizinchikov. You had better find him and ask him yourself,’ said Prince Sergei pointedly.

  15

  The injured detective

  ‘What are you doing, Porfiry Petrovich?’

  ‘I’m carrying the samovar in.’

  ‘Yes, I see that you are doing that,’ said Nikodim Fomich. The Chief Superintendent’s astonishment had turned to bewilderment. ‘I only wonder why you are doing it.’

  ‘Because there is no one else to carry it in for me.’ Porfiry placed the steaming samovar down heavily on his desk. It rattled dangerously and seemed about to topple. Porfiry instinctively reached out a hand and carelessly touched the hot metal urn. He immediately gave a sharp cry of pain.