by R. N. Morris
*
There was no sign of Maria Petrovna at the school over the carpenter’s shop. They found only one child in her classroom, a girl of about nine years, who was seated patiently on the front bench, a slate on her lap in readiness. She turned to face them with wide, wondering eyes beneath a domed brow.
‘Maria Petrovna?’ demanded Porfiry.
The girl gave a mighty shrug and sighed.
‘Where are all the other children?’
‘Gone.’
‘Why then are you still here, child?’
The girl could only answer with another shrug.
‘Porfiry Petrovich,’ said Virginsky, pointing to the black board. On it was written NO SCHOOL TODAY.
‘You must go home, darling. Can you not read? There is no school today.’
‘She will come back. She will not leave us.’ The girl turned back to face the front.
Porfiry and Virginsky exchanged a look of understanding and left her to her expectancy.
They found the priest, Father Anfim, coming out of the other classroom.
‘Where is Maria Petrovna?’
‘You have just missed her,’ said the priest.
‘And Perkhotin?’
‘He has gone too.’
‘Where have they gone?’
‘I do not know. Neither Maria Petrovna nor Apollon Mikhailovich saw fit to share that information with me.’
‘They left together?’
‘Yes. I arrived for an unscheduled inspection. The two of them pushed past me on the stairs. I came up to find the children running riot in both classrooms. I have just sent the last of them home – apart from that rather simple girl in Maria Petrovna’s classroom, who simply refuses to go. She is convinced Maria Petrovna will return. I never would have expected such conduct from Maria Petrovna. Apollon Mikhailovich is another matter. He is a fowl of different feathers. Him I consider capable of anything.’
‘I share your fears, Father. And unless we find Maria Petrovna, I fear it may be the end for her too. Did she or Perkhotin say anything to you on their way out?’
‘He told me to get out of his damn way. I told him to go to Hell. He laughed and said that was precisely where he intended to go.’
‘I see. And did Maria Petrovna say anything?’
‘She … was more polite. She begged me not to be cross. Nor to be afraid, which I thought extraordinary, I must say. It had not occurred to me to be afraid. She said that something very urgent had come up and she had to go with Apollon Mikhailovich. The life of a friend depended on it, she said.’
‘The life of a friend? What could she have meant by that?’ wondered Porfiry.
‘Where do you think they went?’ Virginsky’s eyes locked on to Porfiry’s. There was a note of touching dependence in his voice. It really did seem that deep down he believed Porfiry capable of answering any question asked of him.
‘Perhaps we will find some clues in Perkhotin’s classroom.’
This answer seemed to satisfy Virginsky, or at least hold his burgeoning panic at bay. Without the animation of the children who cascaded daily into it, the classroom seemed stale as well as still. There was an air of abandonment to it. The figures in the illustrated alphabet on the wall were frozen and mute, giving the impression that the room had been locked into one moment of time.
The priest had followed them into the room and was watching closely as the two magistrates cast about, straining for a significant detail to jump out at them.
A line of text was written on the blackboard, partially smudged as if someone had half-heartedly attempted to erase it; or rather, not so much to erase the words, as to add a flourish to them.
‘Out of the … something, the something?’ read Virginsky, quizzically.
‘Out of the eater, the eaten,’ supplied Porfiry. ‘You must recognise it, Father Anfim.’
‘It is Samson’s riddle to the Philistines,’ confirmed the priest. ‘Out of the eater, the eaten. Out of the strong, the sweet.’
‘Of course. You see, you needn’t have worried. Your atheist Perkhotin was teaching scripture.’
‘I do not believe that!’ blustered Father Anfim.
‘To be honest, neither do I. Do you see that, Pavel Pavlovich? The pattern made by the movement of the eraser across the board? A line moving diagonally up and down in a zig-zag.’
‘The letter M! Just like on the mirror!’
‘I feel certain we have found our accomplice.’
‘Perkhotin?’
‘We know that he taught Maria Petrovna at the Smolny Institute. He must also have made the acquaintance of the Polenov sisters too.’ Porfiry was standing in front of the blackboard, peering into its dust-smeared surface as if into a fog from which he expected figures to emerge. ‘Now all we have to do is work out what he means by this. Samson fought the lion. He ripped it apart with his bare hands. A nest of bees settled inside the lion’s carcass and Samson ate their honey. Is that not the story, Father Anfim?’
‘Yes, that’s correct. Judges, chapter fourteen.’
‘You could take it as a religious text, or equally a revolutionary one. The lion is the state. Samson is the revolutionary fighter, Perkhotin in this case, who brings about a sweet boon through a cataclysmic destructive act.’
‘This does not help us!’ cried Virginsky. ‘It doesn’t tell us where he has taken her.’
‘In these situations, it is imperative to remain calm. We are attempting to navigate the unfathomable pathways of the mind, and of a very peculiar type of mind too. It is possible that, like the two-headed eagle, this message has a double valence. It may be that he has inadvertently betrayed himself in writing this. Or perhaps he has left it here intentionally for us to find. It may be that he wishes to lead us to him. If I am not mistaken about his character, it is dominated by vanity. This is always the case with men such as Perkhotin. School masters, I mean. They put themselves in a position where they are cleverer than everyone around them. I feel he is testing us. Are we clever enough to solve his riddle?’
‘I considered becoming a school master,’ said Virginsky with sullen resentment. ‘If my life had followed a different path – one that did not bring me into contact with you – that may very well have been the career I would have chosen. I do not consider it a profession for the vain. Humility and dedication to service are rather the qualities I would associate with it.’
‘I apologise, Pavel Pavlovich, to you and all school masters. No doubt you are right. No doubt it is my own vanity that induces me to view others through the distorting prism of that defect. I will hazard that there is no vainer class of professional man than the investigating magistrate. And that is why I am determined to solve his riddle. Indeed, I feel that it is already solved in my mind.’
‘So? What is the solution?’
‘The children who were murdered by Aglaia Filippovna … what links them?’
‘They were all pupils at this school?’
‘What else?’
‘They were all factory workers.’
‘Yes. Factory workers. To be more precise, they all worked, in fact, at foreign-owned factories.’
‘That is true. But what of it?’
‘Samson’s riddle. Why think of Samson’s riddle now? Unless a certain address in St Petersburg put Samson’s name into his mind and suggested the riddle, which is particularly apt to his intentions.’
‘Samsonyevsky Prospekt.’
‘Very good, Pavel Pavlovich. Samsonyevsky Prospekt. There is, I believe, a prominent foreign-owned factory that lies between Samsonyevsky Prospekt and the Vyborgskaya Embankment. On Samson’s Quay, in fact.’
‘The Nobel Factory! You think he has taken her there? But why?’
‘Time is of the essence, Pavel Pavlovich. Let us find a drozhki. We can talk on the way.’
43
Three hundred foxes
The air was crystalline. A piercing winter clarity assailed their eyes and sharp particles of frozen moisture stung their
faces. Sensing their urgency, the driver stood and whipped his horse mercilessly. The drozhki swung precariously from side to side, as fragile as an empty acorn shell tossed on the wind. At times it seemed to leave the ground.
Porfiry shouted to be heard over the roar of conveyance. ‘News of Aglaia Filippovna’s miraculous recovery no doubt reached him. He must have realised that once she was up and out of his control, it was only a question of time before we came after him. And so, perhaps, he wishes to make one final grand gesture.’
‘What?’ The word came out sharply and was whipped away by the wind.
‘His plan was to incriminate the Tsarist regime – to make the public believe that a member of the Romanov family was capable of child murder, or at the very least to prove that the Tsar was incapable of protecting the empire’s most vulnerable children, thereby propagating revolutionary sentiments to the wider populace. Aglaia Filippovna’s motives may well have been different. Her action was driven by her monstrous jealousy of her sister. She wished to harm all who loved Yelena. That is why she attacked the pupils of Maria Petrovna’s school. To attack Maria Petrovna, whose love for her sister was the most unconditional and unquestioning of all. And of course, Aglaia Filippovna’s jealous rage culminated in her actually destroying her hated sibling. This no doubt created difficulties for Perkhotin. He was forced to help her cover up an essentially personal murder, which he attempted to pass off as political. The two-headed eagle again.’
‘And so? Where does that leave us?’
‘He is no fool. I imagine that he realises the game is up. He must know that his deception has been uncovered. There is little point continuing the pretence. He is exposed as a greater monster than the regime he seeks to overthrow.’
‘Go on.’
‘He has nothing to lose any more. He is not a man to run and hide. He is a man to go out in a blaze of glory.’
‘But why would he take Maria Petrovna with him?’
‘He has shown throughout his career the need to impress young women with his cleverness. There is nothing that flatters his vanity so much as his idolisation in the eyes of young ladies. Perhaps he wishes to persuade Maria Petrovna of the correctness of his actions, to justify himself to her.’
‘You do not think she was involved in this all along?’
‘Only unwittingly. Were she to know the truth, she cannot but be appalled at Perkhotin’s part in Aglaia’s crimes. Her former idol will be transformed into a monster. The effect will be devastating. Everything she has based her life on has stemmed from his teachings.’
‘Why would she go with him?’
‘She may have been acting under duress, though nothing Father Anfim said hinted at that. More likely, she does not yet know the full truth. Perhaps he has revealed Aglaia Filippovna’s guilt, without disclosing his own role in it. She may believe that she is rushing to a meeting with Aglaia Filippovna, and wishes to persuade her to give herself up before any more innocents die. Or perhaps she does know the truth. And Apollon Mikhailovich himself is the friend whose life – or soul – she hopes to save.’
‘What do you think he intends to do?’
‘The story of Samson is instructive, I think. In chapter fifteen of the Book of Judges, we are told that Samson attached burning firebrands to the tails of three hundred foxes, tethering them in pairs, two to a firebrand. I always thought that rather cruel. He released the foxes into the fields of the Philistines, burning their crops in a great conflagration. I wonder if Perkhotin has something similar in mind. The Nobel brothers manufacture a diverse range of engineering products. Including armaments for the Russian state. I have read accounts of their experiments into the development of a new and highly destructive explosive material. They have successfully blown up sections of the Neva, I believe. A crude incendiary device planted in the right part of the factory would result in a far more destructive conflagration than could be achieved by three hundred blindly panicking foxes.’
Virginsky stood in the rocking drozhki and screamed at the driver. ‘Faster! Make the beast go faster!’
*
The Nobel Metalworking Factory was a modern, and in some ways model, factory. It had been in existence for a mere eight years, and so the semi-derelict dilapidation that characterised so many Petersburg factories had not yet taken hold. The Nobel family itself, or rather the members of it who remained in St Petersburg, resided in a mansion that was inside the factory precincts. In fact, their home was attached to the factory and seemed to grow out of it, as if the comfort and leisure of these few individuals was just another product manufactured there. But by choosing to live so close to the source of their wealth, they showed that they were not ashamed of it. On the contrary, it suggested that the pride they might naturally feel towards their home extended to the factory too. It could also be taken as a gesture of solidarity with their employees, or those of them who lived on site in the purpose-built workers’ quarters.
The mansion presented a neo-classical frontage which, together with a stand of trees planted beside it, almost hid the grimier blocks behind. The screen was only partially successful because the trees were now seasonally denuded. There was an ornamental garden in front of it, bounded by a wrought iron fence, with a semi-circular recess reminiscent of the entrance to a park. The productive factory buildings appeared plain and functional, though well-maintained and orderly, laid out at right angles to one another. As an indication of the factory’s rational design, there was only one smoking chimney tower, which peeped over the roof of the palatial façade. Perspective suggested that it was at the rear of the factory precinct, at the furthest possible distance from the Nobel family home.
It was here that Porfiry and Virginsky called, identifying themselves as magistrates and insisting that Ludwig Nobel himself be made aware of a most serious threat to his factory. All this was very hard for the maid to take in. Somewhat panic-stricken, she informed them that Ludwig Immanuelevich was currently at work in the office.
‘Then take us to him, miss! There is not a moment to lose!’ demanded Virginsky. ‘Do you wish to be blown to atoms?’
The question galvanised the timorous girl into action. She led them at a bustling lick through a beech-panelled hall, which had a fresh but sober countenance. There was no real decline in the standard of décor as they passed into the servants’ quarters. In the kitchen, it was not just the hanging pots and pans that gleamed, but every surface, even the freshly-waxed floor.
The kitchen door gave directly on to the factory yard. Now, suddenly, as that door was thrown open, the harsh world of industry clamoured to make itself felt. The day’s activity was in full flow. Haulage carts drawn by teams of colossal drays rattled across the cobbles. Creaking gantries unloaded and loaded the raw materials and finished products that represented the mighty respiration of the plant. In came palettes of coke, ore, sand, limestone and paint. Out went machine parts, pipes, gates, chains, sheet metal, not to mention mysterious unmarked crates, the contents of which could only be guessed at. But this was only a fraction of the goods processed. On the other side of the main factory building was the River Neva, where barges were loaded and unloaded, ferrying goods to and from every corner of the empire. It was here that several years ago Ludwig Nobel’s brother Alfred had discharged a canister containing a chemical formulation of his devising, which had resulted in the displacement of several tons of icy water and the deaths of countless fish.
To Porfiry, there was something vital and energising about all this teeming activity, something also profoundly human.
At the entrance to the office block, the maid left them in the hands of a middle-aged clerk in a black frock coat. His face was unpromisingly lean and officious-looking, and his neck raw from the abrasion of his stiff winged collar; nonetheless, he had the intelligence to grasp the urgency of the situation immediately and hurried off to fetch Ludwig Nobel himself.
‘We are wasting time,’ hissed Virginsky, as they waited for the arrival of that gentleman.
The clerk returned, accompanied by a man of about forty years of age, with dark hair parted low on one side and full mutton-chop sideburns. His expression was careworn around his eyes, but one eyebrow was kinked wryly. The line of his mouth was grim, though not without an angle of scepticism or reservation.
‘What is all this about?’
‘You are Ludwig Nobel?’
‘I am. And you?’
‘I am Porfiry Petrovich, investigating magistrate. This is my colleague, Pavel Pavlovich. We are here because we believe your factory may be in imminent danger. Tell me, if one wanted to wreak the maximum damage through an incendiary attack, where would one launch it?’
Nobel’s features contracted into a frown. He did not seem alarmed, rather he was an engineer engaged in calculating an interesting but essentially abstract problem. ‘I would suggest the munitions storeroom. We store a quantity of gunpowder there, amongst other combustible and highly volatile materials. However, it is practically impregnable.’