The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries

by The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries (retail) (epub)

  “Hush, hush! Let me speak…do not stop me…it is horrible…let me tell all…the whole story, without faltering….Listen….You remember…you remember…Henry….”

  Suzanne shuddered and looked at her. The younger sister continued:

  “You must hear it all, if you are to understand. I was twelve, only twelve, you remember that, don’t you? And I was spoiled, I did everything that came into my head!…Don’t you remember how spoiled I was?…Listen….The first time he came he wore high shining boots; he dismounted in front of the steps, and he apologized for his clothes, saying he had come with news for Father. You remember, don’t you?…Don’t speak…listen. When I saw him I was quite overcome, I thought him so handsome; and I remained standing in a corner of the drawing room all the time he was speaking. Children are strange…and terrible….Oh, yes…I have dreamed of it!

  “He came back…many times….I gazed at him with all my eyes, with all my soul….I was big for my age…and far more sophisticated than people supposed. He came again often….I thought of nothing but him. I used to repeat very softly: ‘Henry…Henry de Sampierre!’

  “Then they said that he was going to marry you. It was a sore grief to me, Sister, oh, a sore, sore grief! I cried for three whole nights, without sleeping. He used to come every day, in the afternoon, after lunch, you remember, don’t you? Don’t speak…listen. You made him cakes, of which he was very fond…with flour, butter, and milk….Oh! I knew just how you made them….I could make them this moment, if I had to. He would swallow them in a single mouthful, and then he would toss down a glass of wine…and then say: ‘Delicious!’ Do you remember how he used to say it?

  “I was jealous, jealous….The day of your wedding was drawing near. There was only a fortnight. I was going mad. I used to say to myself: ‘He shall not marry Suzanne, no, I won’t have it….It is I who will marry him, when I am grown up. I shall never find a man I love so much!…And then one evening, ten days before the wedding, you went out with him to walk in front of the house, in the moonlight…and out there…under the pine tree, the big pine tree…he kissed you…held you…in his arms…for such a long time….You haven’t forgotten, have you?…It may have been the first time…yes…you were so pale when you came back into the drawing room!

  “I saw you; I was there, in the copse. I grew wild with rage! If I could have done it, I would have killed you both!

  “I said to myself: ‘He shall not marry Suzanne, never! He shall not marry anyone….I should be too unhappy….” Suddenly I began to hate him terribly.

  “Do you know what I did then?…Listen. I had seen the gardener make little balls with which to kill stray dogs. He crushed a bottle with a stone, and put the ground glass in a little ball of meat.

  “I took a little medicine bottle from Mother’s room, I smashed it up with a hammer, and hid the glass in my pocket. It was a glittering powder….Next day, as soon as you had made the little cakes, I split them open with a knife and put the glass in….He ate three of them…and I, too, ate one….I threw the other six into the pond….The two swans died three days later….Don’t speak…listen, listen. I was the only one who did not die….But I have always been ill…listen….He died…you know…listen…that was nothing….It was afterwards, later…always…that it was most terrible…listen….

  “My life, my whole life…what torture! I said to myself: ‘I will never leave my sister. And I will tell her all, in the hour of my death.’…There! And since then I have thought every moment of this hour, the hour when I shall have to tell you all….Now it has come…it is terrible….Oh!…Sister!

  “Every moment the thought has been with me, morning and evening, day and night: ‘I shall have to tell her, some day….’ I waited….What torment!…It is done….Do not say anything….Now I am afraid….I am afraid….Oh, I am afraid! If I were to see him again, presently, when I am dead…see him again…do you dream of seeing him?…See him before you do!…I shall not dare….I must…I am going to die….I want you to forgive me. I want you to….Without it, I cannot come into his presence. Oh, tell her to forgive me, Father, tell her….I beg you. I cannot die without it….”

  She was silent, and lay panting, still clawing at the sheet with her shriveled fingers….

  Suzanne had hidden her face in her hands and did not stir. She was thinking of the man she might have loved so long! What a happy life they would have had! She saw him again, in the vanished long-ago, in the distant past forever blotted out. Oh, beloved dead, how you tear our hearts! Oh, that kiss, her only kiss! She had kept it in her soul. And then, nothing more, nothing more in all her life!…

  Suddenly the priest stood up and cried out in a loud shaken voice:

  “Mademoiselle Suzanne, your sister is dying!”

  Then Suzanne let her hands fall apart and showed a face streaming with tears, and, falling upon her sister, she kissed her fiercely, stammering:

  “I forgive you, I forgive you, little one….”

  The Swedish Match

  &

  Sleepy

  ANTON CHEKHOV

  Generally regarded as one of the world’s greatest short-story writers and playwrights, Anton Pavlovitch Chekhov (1860–1904) was extremely prolific in his short life, finding success as a writer of popular humor, horror, and crime stories, selling his first, “What Is Met in the Novels” just before his twentieth birthday while a medical student at Moscow University.

  His stories number in the hundreds, many of which have never been translated and some never even included in his collected works in Russia. His only novel, The Shooting Party (1884), was published in the same year that he took his medical degree, and a short-story collection, Motley Stories (1886), garnered critical acclaim.

  He was already suffering from tuberculosis and soon moved to a farm in the countryside. As his health deteriorated, he made frequent trips to warmer climates, befriending Leo Tolstoy on one trip to Yalta. He shared some of Tolstoy’s views of simple Christianity and anarchy for a short while, then broke with the philosophy, famously declaring: “Reason and justice tell me that there is more love for humanity in electricity and steam than in chastity and vegetarianism.”

  In the last decade of his life, he wrote his four greatest plays, The Seagull (1896), Uncle Vanya (1897), The Three Sisters (1901), and The Cherry Orchard (1904). His collected works were translated into English by Constance Garnett and published in thirteen volumes (1916–1922).

  “The Swedish Match” (also published as “The Safety Match” and “The Match”), uncommonly for Russian murder stories, begins as a classic detective story that devolves into farce as both the magistrate and his young assistant are so confident of their theories. It was originally published in 1884.

  Typical of many Russian stories, “Sleepy” (also published as “Let Me Sleep,” “Hush-a-bye, My Baby,” and “Sleepyhead”) is filled with despair and a sympathetic look at the crushing plight of a poor servant girl. It was originally published in the January 25, 1888, issue of the St. Petersburg Gazette.

  THE SWEDISH MATCH

  Anton Chekhov

  I

  In the morning of October 6, 1885, a well-dressed young man presented himself at the office of the police superintendent of the 2nd division of the S. district, and announced that his employer, a retired cornet of the guards, called Mark Ivanovitch Klyauzov, had been murdered. The young man was pale and extremely agitated as he made this announcement. His hands trembled and there was a look of horror in his eyes.

  “To whom have I the honour of speaking?” the superintendent asked him.

  “Psyekov, Klyauzov’s steward. Agricultural and engineering expert.”

  The police superintendent, on reaching the spot with Psyekov and the necessary witnesses, found the position as follows.

  Masses of people were crowding about the lodge in which Klyauzov lived. The news of the event had flown round the neighbo
urhood with the rapidity of lightning, and, thanks to its being a holiday, the people were flocking to the lodge from all the neighbouring villages. There was a regular hubbub of talk. Pale and tearful faces were to be seen here and there. The door into Klyauzov’s bedroom was found to be locked. The key was in the lock on the inside.

  “Evidently the criminals made their way in by the window” Psyekov observed, as they examined the door.

  They went into the garden into which the bedroom window looked. The window had a gloomy, ominous air. It was covered by a faded green curtain. One corner of the curtain was slightly turned back, which made it possible to peep into the bedroom.

  “Has anyone of you looked in at the window?” inquired the superintendent.

  “No, your honour,” said Yefrem, the gardener, a little, grey-haired old man with the face of a veteran non-commissioned officer. “No one feels like looking when they are shaking in every limb!”

  “Ech, Mark Ivanitch! Mark Ivanitch!” sighed the superintendent, as he looked at the window. “I told you that you would come to a bad end! I told you, poor dear—you wouldn’t listen! Dissipation leads to no good!”

  “It’s thanks to Yefrem,” said Psyekov. “We should never have guessed it but for him. It was he who first thought that something was wrong. He came to me this morning and said: ‘Why is it our master hasn’t waked up for so long? He hasn’t been out of his bedroom for a whole week!’ When he said that to me I was struck all of a heap….The thought flashed through my mind at once. He hasn’t made an appearance since Saturday of last week, and to-day’s Sunday. Seven days is no joke!”

  “Yes, poor man,” the superintendent sighed again. “A clever fellow, well-educated, and so good-hearted. There was no one like him, one may say, in company. But a rake; the kingdom of heaven be his! I’m not surprised at anything with him! Stepan,” he said, addressing one of the witnesses, “ride off this minute to my house and send Andryushka to the police captain’s, let him report to him. Say Mark Ivanitch has been murdered! Yes, and run to the inspector—why should he sit in comfort doing nothing? Let him come here. And you go yourself as fast as you can to the examining magistrate, Nikolay Yermolaitch, and tell him to come here. Wait a bit, I will write him a note.”

  The police superintendent stationed watchmen round the lodge, and went off to the steward’s to have tea. Ten minutes later he was sitting on a stool, carefully nibbling lumps of sugar, and sipping tea as hot as a red-hot coal.

  “There it is!…” he said to Psyekov, “there it is!…a gentleman, and a well-to-do one, too…a favourite of the gods, one may say, to use Pushkin’s expression, and what has he made of it? Nothing! He gave himself up to drinking and debauchery, and…here now…he has been murdered!”

  Two hours later the examining magistrate drove up. Nikolay Yermolaitch Tchubikov (that was the magistrate’s name), a tall, thick-set old man of sixty, had been hard at work for a quarter of a century. He was known to the whole district as an honest, intelligent, energetic man, devoted to his work. His invariable companion, assistant, and secretary, a tall young man of six and twenty, called Dyukovsky, arrived on the scene of action with him.

  “Is it possible, gentlemen?” Tchubikov began, going into Psyekov’s room and rapidly shaking hands with everyone. “Is it possible? Mark Ivanitch? Murdered? No, it’s impossible! Imposs-i-ble!”

  “There it is,” sighed the superintendent

  “Merciful heavens! Why I saw him only last Friday. At the fair at Tarabankovo! Saving your presence, I drank a glass of vodka with him!”

  “There it is,” the superintendent sighed once more.

  They heaved sighs, expressed their horror, drank a glass of tea each, and went to the lodge.

  “Make way!” the police inspector shouted to the crowd.

  On going into the lodge the examining magistrate first of all set to work to inspect the door into the bedroom. The door turned out to be made of deal, painted yellow, and not to have been tampered with. No special traces that might have served as evidence could be found. They proceeded to break open the door.

  “I beg you, gentlemen, who are not concerned, to retire,” said the examining magistrate, when, after long banging and cracking, the door yielded to the axe and the chisel. “I ask this in the interests of the investigation….Inspector, admit no one!”

  Tchubikov, his assistant, and the police superintendent opened the door and hesitatingly, one after the other, walked into the room. The following spectacle met their eyes. In the solitary window stood a big wooden bedstead with an immense feather bed on it. On the rumpled feather bed lay a creased and crumpled quilt. A pillow, in a cotton pillow case—also much creased, was on the floor. On a little table beside the bed lay a silver watch, and silver coins to the value of twenty kopecks. Some sulphur matches lay there too. Except the bed, the table, and a solitary chair, there was no furniture in the room. Looking under the bed, the superintendent saw two dozen empty bottles, an old straw hat, and a jar of vodka. Under the table lay one boot, covered with dust. Taking a look round the room, Tchubikov frowned and flushed crimson.

  “The blackguards!” he muttered, clenching his fists.

  “And where is Mark Ivanitch?” Dyukovsky asked quietly.

  “I beg you not to put your spoke in,” Tchubikov answered roughly. “Kindly examine the floor. This is the second case in my experience, Yevgraf Kuzmitch,” he added to the police superintendent, dropping his voice. “In 1870 I had a similar case. But no doubt you remember it….The murder of the merchant Portretov. It was just the same. The blackguards murdered him, and dragged the dead body out of the window.”

  Tchubikov went to the window, drew the curtain aside, and cautiously pushed the window. The window opened.

  “It opens, so it was not fastened….H’m there are traces on the window-sill. Do you see? Here is the trace of a knee….Some one climbed out….We shall have to inspect the window thoroughly.”

  “There is nothing special to be observed on the floor,” said Dyukovsky. “No stains, nor scratches. The only thing I have found is a used Swedish match. Here it is. As far as I remember, Mark Ivanitch didn’t smoke; in a general way he used sulphur ones, never Swedish matches. This match may serve as a clue….”

  “Oh, hold your tongue, please!” cried Tchubikov, with a wave of his hand. “He keeps on about his match! I can’t stand these excitable people! Instead of looking for matches, you had better examine the bed!”

  On inspecting the bed, Dyukovsky reported:

  “There are no stains of blood or of anything else….Nor are there any fresh rents. On the pillow there are traces of teeth. A liquid, having the smell of beer and also the taste of it, has been spilt on the quilt….The general appearance of the bed gives grounds for supposing there has been a struggle.”

  “I know there was a struggle without your telling me! No one asked you whether there was a struggle. Instead of looking out for a struggle you had better be…”

  “One boot is here, the other one is not on the scene.”

  “Well, what of that?”

  “Why, they must have strangled him while he was taking off his boots. He hadn’t time to take the second boot off when….”

  “He’s off again!…And how do you know that he was strangled?”

  “There are marks of teeth on the pillow. The pillow itself is very much crumpled, and has been flung to a distance of six feet from the bed.”

  “He argues, the chatterbox! We had better go into the garden. You had better look in the garden instead of rummaging about here….I can do that without your help.”

  When they went out into the garden their first task was the inspection of the grass. The grass had been trampled down under the windows. The clump of burdock against the wall under the window turned out to have been trodden on too. Dyukovsky succeeded in finding on it some broken shoo
ts, and a little bit of wadding. On the topmost burrs, some fine threads of dark blue wool were found.

  “What was the colour of his last suit?” Dyukovsky asked Psyekov.

  “It was yellow, made of canvas.”

  “Capital! Then it was they who were in dark blue….”

  Some of the burrs were cut off and carefully wrapped up in paper. At that moment Artsybashev-Svistakovsky, the police captain, and Tyutyuev, the doctor, arrived. The police captain greeted the others, and at once proceeded to satisfy his curiosity; the doctor, a tall and extremely lean man with sunken eyes, a long nose, and a sharp chin, greeting no one and asking no questions, sat down on a stump, heaved a sigh and said:

  “The Serbians are in a turmoil again! I can’t make out what they want! Ah, Austria, Austria! It’s your doing!”

  The inspection of the window from outside yielded absolutely no result; the inspection of the grass and surrounding bushes furnished many valuable clues. Dyukovsky succeeded, for instance, in detecting a long, dark streak in the grass, consisting of stains, and stretching from the window for a good many yards into the garden. The streak ended under one of the lilac bushes in a big, brownish stain. Under the same bush was found a boot, which turned out to be the fellow to the one found in the bedroom.

  “This is an old stain of blood,” said Dyukovsky, examining the stain.

  At the word “blood,” the doctor got up and lazily took a cursory glance at the stain.

  “Yes, it’s blood,” he muttered.

  “Then he wasn’t strangled since there’s blood,” said Tchubikov, looking malignantly at Dyukovsky.

  “He was strangled in the bedroom, and here, afraid he would come to, they stabbed him with something sharp. The stain under the bush shows that he lay there for a comparatively long time, while they were trying to find some way of carrying him, or something to carry him on out of the garden.”

  “Well, and the boot?”