The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries

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

  “That boot bears out my contention that he was murdered while he was taking off his boots before going to bed. He had taken off one boot, the other, that is, this boot he had only managed to get half off. While he was being dragged and shaken the boot that was only half on came off of itself….”

  “What powers of deduction! Just look at him!” Tchubikov jeered. “He brings it all out so pat! And when will you learn not to put your theories forward? You had better take a little of the grass for analysis instead of arguing!”

  After making the inspection and taking a plan of the locality they went off to the steward’s to write a report and have lunch. At lunch they talked.

  “Watch, money, and everything else…are untouched,” Tchubikov began the conversation. “It is as clear as twice two makes four that the murder was committed not for mercenary motives.”

  “It was committed by a man of the educated class,” Dyukovsky put in.

  “From what do you draw that conclusion?”

  “I base it on the Swedish match which the peasants about here have not learned to use yet. Such matches are only used by landowners and not by all of them. He was murdered, by the way, not by one but by three, at least: two held him while the third strangled him. Klyauzov was strong and the murderers must have known that.”

  “What use would his strength be to him, supposing he were asleep?”

  “The murderers came upon him as he was taking off his boots. He was taking off his boots, so he was not asleep.”

  “It’s no good making things up! You had better eat your lunch!”

  “To my thinking, your honour,” said Yefrem, the gardener, as he set the samovar on the table, “this vile deed was the work of no other than Nikolashka.”

  “Quite possible,” said Psyekov.

  “Who’s this Nikolashka?”

  “The master’s valet, your honour,” answered Yefrem. “Who else should it be if not he? He’s a ruffian, your honour! A drunkard, and such a dissipated fellow! May the Queen of Heaven never bring the like again! He always used to fetch vodka for the master, he always used to put the master to bed….Who should it be if not he? And what’s more, I venture to bring to your notice, your honour, he boasted once in a tavern, the rascal, that he would murder his master. It’s all on account of Akulka, on account of a woman….He had a soldier’s wife….The master took a fancy to her and got intimate with her, and he…was angered by it, to be sure. He’s lolling about in the kitchen now, drunk. He’s crying…making out he is grieving over the master….”

  “And anyone might be angry over Akulka, certainly,” said Psyekov. “She is a soldier’s wife, a peasant woman, but…Mark Ivanitch might well call her Nana. There is something in her that does suggest Nana…fascinating…”

  “I have seen her…I know…” said the examining magistrate, blowing his nose in a red handkerchief.

  Dyukovsky blushed and dropped his eyes. The police superintendent drummed on his saucer with his fingers. The police captain coughed and rummaged in his portfolio for something. On the doctor alone the mention of Akulka and Nana appeared to produce no impression. Tchubikov ordered Nikolashka to be fetched. Nikolashka, a lanky young man with a long pock-marked nose and a hollow chest, wearing a reefer jacket that had been his master’s, came into Psyekov’s room and bowed down to the ground before Tchubikov. His face looked sleepy and showed traces of tears. He was drunk and could hardly stand up.

  “Where is your master?” Tchubikov asked him.

  “He’s murdered, your honour.”

  As he said this Nikolashka blinked and began to cry.

  “We know that he is murdered. But where is he now? Where is his body?”

  “They say it was dragged out of window and buried in the garden.”

  “H’m…the results of the investigation are already known in the kitchen then….That’s bad. My good fellow, where were you on the night when your master was killed? On Saturday, that is?”

  Nikolashka raised his head, craned his neck, and pondered.

  “I can’t say, your honour,” he said. “I was drunk and I don’t remember.”

  “An alibi!” whispered Dyukovsky, grinning and rubbing his hands.

  “Ah! And why is it there’s blood under your master’s window!”

  Nikolashka flung up his head and pondered.

  “Think a little quicker,” said the police captain.

  “In a minute. That blood’s from a trifling matter, your honour. I killed a hen; I cut her throat very simply in the usual way, and she fluttered out of my hands and took and ran off….That’s what the blood’s from.”

  Yefrem testified that Nikolashka really did kill a hen every evening and killed it in all sorts of places, and no one had seen the half-killed hen running about the garden, though of course it could not be positively denied that it had done so.

  “An alibi,” laughed Dyukovsky, “and what an idiotic alibi.”

  “Have you had relations with Akulka?”

  “Yes, I have sinned.”

  “And your master carried her off from you?”

  “No, not at all. It was this gentleman here, Mr. Psyekov, Ivan Mihalitch, who enticed her from me, and the master took her from Ivan Mihalitch. That’s how it was.”

  Psyekov looked confused and began rubbing his left eye. Dyukovsky fastened his eyes upon him, detected his confusion, and started. He saw on the steward’s legs dark blue trousers which he had not previously noticed. The trousers reminded him of the blue threads found on the burdock. Tchubikov in his turn glanced suspiciously at Psyekov.

  “You can go!” he said to Nikolashka. “And now allow me to put one question to you, Mr. Psyekov. You were here, of course, on the Saturday of last week?”

  “Yes, at ten o’clock I had supper with Mark Ivanitch.”

  “And afterwards?”

  Psyekov was confused, and got up from the table.

  “Afterwards…afterwards…I really don’t remember,” he muttered. “I had drunk a good deal on that occasion….I can’t remember where and when I went to bed….Why do you all look at me like that? As though I had murdered him!”

  “Where did you wake up?”

  “I woke up in the servants’ kitchen on the stove….They can all confirm that. How I got on to the stove I can’t say….”

  “Don’t disturb yourself….Do you know Akulina?”

  “Oh well, not particularly.”

  “Did she leave you for Klyauzov?”

  “Yes….Yefrem, bring some more mushrooms! Will you have some tea, Yevgraf Kuzmitch?”

  There followed an oppressive, painful silence that lasted for some five minutes. Dyukovsky held his tongue, and kept his piercing eyes on Psyekov’s face, which gradually turned pale. The silence was broken by Tchubikov.

  “We must go to the big house,” he said, “and speak to the deceased’s sister, Marya Ivanovna. She may give us some evidence.”

  Tchubikov and his assistant thanked Psyekov for the lunch, then went off to the big house. They found Klyauzov’s sister, a maiden lady of five and forty, on her knees before a high family shrine of ikons. When she saw portfolios and caps adorned with cockades in her visitors’ hands, she turned pale.

  “First of all, I must offer an apology for disturbing your devotions, so to say,” the gallant Tchubikov began with a scrape. “We have come to you with a request. You have heard, of course, already….There is a suspicion that your brother has somehow been murdered. God’s will, you know….Death no one can escape, neither Tsar nor ploughman. Can you not assist us with some fact, something that will throw light?”

  “Oh, do not ask me!” said Marya Ivanovna, turning whiter still, and hiding her face in her hands. “I can tell you nothing! Nothing! I implore you! I can say nothing…What can I do? Oh, no, no…not a word…o
f my brother! I would rather die than speak!”

  Marya Ivanovna burst into tears and went away into another room. The officials looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and beat a retreat.

  “A devil of a woman!” said Dyukovsky, swearing as they went out of the big house. “Apparently she knows something and is concealing it. And there is something peculiar in the maid-servant’s expression too….You wait a bit, you devils! We will get to the bottom of it all!”

  In the evening, Tchubikov and his assistant were driving home by the light of a pale-faced moon; they sat in their waggonette, summing up in their minds the incidents of the day. Both were exhausted and sat silent. Tchubikov never liked talking on the road. In spite of his talkativeness, Dyukovsky held his tongue in deference to the old man. Towards the end of the journey, however, the young man could endure the silence no longer, and began:

  “That Nikolashka has had a hand in the business,” he said, “non dubitandum est. One can see from his mug too what sort of a chap he is….His alibi gives him away hand and foot. There is no doubt either that he was not the instigator of the crime. He was only the stupid hired tool. Do you agree? The discreet Psyekov plays a not unimportant part in the affair too. His blue trousers, his embarrassment, his lying on the stove from fright after the murder, his alibi, and Akulka.”

  “Keep it up, you’re in your glory! According to you, if a man knows Akulka he is the murderer. Ah, you hot-head! You ought to be sucking your bottle instead of investigating cases! You used to be running after Akulka too, does that mean that you had a hand in this business?”

  “Akulka was a cook in your house for a month, too, but…I don’t say anything. On that Saturday night I was playing cards with you, I saw you, or I should be after you too. The woman is not the point, my good sir. The point is the nasty, disgusting, mean feeling….The discreet young man did not like to be cut out, do you see. Vanity, do you see….He longed to be revenged. Then…His thick lips are a strong indication of sensuality. Do you remember how he smacked his lips when he compared Akulka to Nana? That he is burning with passion, the scoundrel, is beyond doubt! And so you have wounded vanity and unsatisfied passion. That’s enough to lead to murder. Two of them are in our hands, but who is the third? Nikolashka and Psyekov held him. Who was it smothered him? Psyekov is timid, easily embarrassed, altogether a coward. People like Nikolashka are not equal to smothering with a pillow, they set to work with an axe or a mallet….Some third person must have smothered him, but who?”

  Dyukovsky pulled his cap over his eyes, and pondered. He was silent till the waggonette had driven up to the examining magistrate’s house.

  “Eureka!” he said, as he went into the house, and took off his overcoat. “Eureka, Nikolay Yermolaitch! I can’t understand how it is it didn’t occur to me before. Do you know who the third is?”

  “Do leave off, please! There’s supper ready. Sit down to supper!”

  Tchubikov and Dyukovsky sat down to supper. Dyukovsky poured himself out a wine-glassful of vodka, got up, stretched, and with sparkling eyes, said:

  “Let me tell you then that the third person who collaborated with the scoundrel Psyekov and smothered him was a woman! Yes! I am speaking of the murdered man’s sister, Marya Ivanovna!”

  Tchubikov coughed over his vodka and fastened his eyes on Dyukovsky.

  “Are you…not quite right? Is your head…not quite right? Does it ache?”

  “I am quite well. Very good, suppose I have gone out of my mind, but how do you explain her confusion on our arrival? How do you explain her refusal to give information? Admitting that that is trivial—very good! All right!—but think of the terms they were on! She detested her brother! She is an Old Believer, he was a profligate, a godless fellow…that is what has bred hatred between them! They say he succeeded in persuading her that he was an angel of Satan! He used to practise spiritualism in her presence!”

  “Well, what then?”

  “Don’t you understand? She’s an Old Believer, she murdered him through fanaticism! She has not merely slain a wicked man, a profligate, she has freed the world from Antichrist—and that she fancies is her merit, her religious achievement! Ah, you don’t know these old maids, these Old Believers! You should read Dostoevsky! And what does Lyeskov say…and Petchersky! It’s she, it’s she, I’ll stake my life on it. She smothered him! Oh, the fiendish woman! Wasn’t she, perhaps, standing before the ikons when we went in to put us off the scent? ‘I’ll stand up and say my prayers,’ she said to herself, ‘they will think I am calm and don’t expect them.’ That’s the method of all novices in crime. Dear Nikolay Yermolaitch! My dear man! Do hand this case over to me! Let me go through with it to the end! My dear fellow! I have begun it, and I will carry it through to the end.”

  Tchubikov shook his head and frowned.

  “I am equal to sifting difficult cases myself,” he said. “And it’s your place not to put yourself forward. Write what is dictated to you, that is your business!”

  Dyukovsky flushed crimson, walked out, and slammed the door.

  “A clever fellow, the rogue,” Tchubikov muttered, looking after him. “Ve-ery clever! Only inappropriately hasty. I shall have to buy him a cigar-case at the fair for a present.”

  Next morning a lad with a big head and a hare lip came from Klyauzovka. He gave his name as the shepherd Danilko, and furnished a very interesting piece of information.

  “I had had a drop,” said he. “I stayed on till midnight at my crony’s. As I was going home, being drunk, I got into the river for a bathe. I was bathing and what do I see! Two men coming along the dam carrying something black. ‘Tyoo!’ I shouted at them. They were scared, and cut along as fast as they could go into the Makarev kitchen-gardens. Strike me dead, if it wasn’t the master they were carrying!”

  Towards evening of the same day Psyekov and Nikolashka were arrested and taken under guard to the district town. In the town they were put in the prison tower.

  II

  Twelve days passed.

  It was morning. The examining magistrate, Nikolay Yermolaitch, was sitting at a green table at home, looking through the papers, relating to the “Klyauzov case”; Dyukovsky was pacing up and down the room restlessly, like a wolf in a cage.

  “You are convinced of the guilt of Nikolashka and Psyekov,” he said, nervously pulling at his youthful beard. “Why is it you refuse to be convinced of the guilt of Marya Ivanovna? Haven’t you evidence enough?”

  “I don’t say that I don’t believe in it. I am convinced of it, but somehow I can’t believe it….There is no real evidence. It’s all theoretical, as it were….Fanaticism and one thing and another….”

  “And you must have an axe and bloodstained sheets!…You lawyers! Well, I will prove it to you then! Do give up your slip-shod attitude to the psychological aspect of the case. Your Marya Ivanovna ought to be in Siberia! I’ll prove it. If theoretical proof is not enough for you, I have something material….It will show you how right my theory is! Only let me go about a little!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The Swedish match! Have you forgotten? I haven’t forgotten it! I’ll find out who struck it in the murdered man’s room! It was not struck by Nikolashka, nor by Psyekov, neither of whom turned out to have matches when searched, but a third person, that is Marya Ivanovna. And I will prove it!…Only let me drive about the district, make some inquiries….”

  “Oh, very well, sit down….Let us proceed to the examination.”

  Dyukovsky sat down to the table, and thrust his long nose into the papers.

  “Bring in Nikolay Tetchov!” cried the examining magistrate.

  Nikolashka was brought in. He was pale and thin as a chip. He was trembling.

  “Tetchov!” began Tchubikov. “In 1879 you were convicted of theft and condemned to a term of imprisonment. In 1882 you we
re condemned for theft a second time, and a second time sent to prison…We know all about it….”

  A look of surprise came up into Nikolashka’s face. The examining magistrate’s omniscience amazed him, but soon wonder was replaced by an expression of extreme distress. He broke into sobs, and asked leave to go to wash, and calm himself. He was led out.

  “Bring in Psyekov!” said the examining magistrate.

  Psyekov was led in. The young man’s face had greatly changed during those twelve days. He was thin, pale, and wasted. There was a look of apathy in his eyes.

  “Sit down, Psyekov,” said Tchubikov. “I hope that to-day you will be sensible and not persist in lying as on other occasions. All this time you have denied your participation in the murder of Klyauzov, in spite of the mass of evidence against you. It is senseless. Confession is some mitigation of guilt. To-day I am talking to you for the last time. If you don’t confess to-day, to-morrow it will be too late. Come, tell us….”

  “I know nothing, and I don’t know your evidence,” whispered Psyekov.

  “That’s useless! Well then, allow me to tell you how it happened. On Saturday evening, you were sitting in Klyauzov’s bedroom drinking vodka and beer with him.” (Dyukovsky riveted his eyes on Psyekov’s face, and did not remove them during the whole monologue.) “Nikolay was waiting upon you. Between twelve and one Mark Ivanitch told you he wanted to go to bed. He always did go to bed at that time. While he was taking off his boots and giving you some instructions regarding the estate, Nikolay and you at a given signal seized your intoxicated master and flung him back upon the bed. One of you sat on his feet, the other on his head. At that moment the lady, you know who, in a black dress, who had arranged with you beforehand the part she would take in the crime, came in from the passage. She picked up the pillow, and proceeded to smother him with it. During the struggle, the light went out. The woman took a box of Swedish matches out of her pocket and lighted the candle. Isn’t that right? I see from your face that what I say is true. Well, to proceed….Having smothered him, and being convinced that he had ceased to breathe, Nikolay and you dragged him out of window and put him down near the burdocks. Afraid that he might regain consciousness, you struck him with something sharp. Then you carried him, and laid him for some time under a lilac bush. After resting and considering a little, you carried him…lifted him over the hurdle….Then went along the road….Then comes the dam; near the dam you were frightened by a peasant. But what is the matter with you?”