R. Morris - A Vengeful Longing

‘Pity. It would have been more helpful had it turned out to be aconite.’ Nikodim Fomich’s expression remained cheerful as he expressed his disappointment.

‘There was never any aconite in the doctor’s study,’ said Porfiry forcefully. ‘I do not believe Dr Meyer needed to kill his wife. He had already shut his marriage up in a drawer. I am not sure his wife existed for him any more. Perhaps the same could also be said for his son.’

‘You and your psychology, Porfiry Petrovich. So it was that Bezmygin fellow who killed them?’

‘No!’ cried Porfiry in despair. ‘That is to say, I don’t know. We must probe the connections.’

Nikodim Fomich was no longer paying attention. A new thought was distracting him. ‘Ah, but what about that French woman? Naked, I hear, apart from a counterpane. That will provide a colourful detail for your memoirs, Porfiry Petrovich.’

‘I will not be writing any memoirs.’

‘I wish I had seen old Firecracker’s face,’ said Nikodim Fomich delightedly. ‘What a picture that must have made.’

Porfiry let out a heavy, despondent sigh.

‘Well, my friend, I’m sure you will work it all out. There’s nothing you like so much as an impenetrable mystery. I have every faith in you.’

Porfiry said nothing. Instead he startled the room by bringing his open palm down heavily on his desk. He turned his hand over slowly, peering into the widening gap. At last he lifted his hand and held it suspended in front of his face, studying the empty palm for a further minute or two. He gave Nikodim Fomich and Virginsky a challenging look but offered no explanation.

Ruslan Vladimirovich Vakhramev sat up straight in the chair. His clothes were remarkably unruffled for a man who had spent the night in a police cell, as were his hair and beard, both freshly and deeply combed. Porfiry noticed the cleanliness of his hands, particularly his fingernails. He seemed to have slept well.

Porfiry laid a bulging file on the deal table of the interview room and sat down opposite Vakhramev. He lit a cigarette as Virginsky took the seat next to him. Porfiry smoked in silence, watching Vakhramev closely all the time. Vakhramev met his gaze with a variety of expressions, as older people often respond to inquisitive but silent children. But when this produced no effect, Vakhramev allowed himself the one face that expressed his genuine sentiment, a deep and devastating rage. His face flushed with colour. He stared at Porfiry with hatred, for what he had brought him to.

‘Have you ever visited prostitutes?’ said Porfiry at last, keeping his tone neutral. He did not look at Vakharamev as he asked the question, but at the cigarette that he was grinding into the tin ashtray.

Vakhramev’s rage shot him to his feet, the chair scraping back on the floor. ‘What kind of despicable question is that?’

‘It is a question that could gain you your liberty,’ said Porfiry. ‘Please sit down.’ He looked up at Vakhramev with a steady gaze.

Now Vakhramev’s expression was utterly bewildered. He seemed lost. There was no pretence left to him. He took his seat again, slowly. ‘I do not see what you are getting at, or why you feel the need to ask these insulting and quite filthy questions. I am a respectable man. Besides, this line of enquiry can have nothing to do with Setochkin.’

‘On the contrary, it may turn out to be highly relevant.’ Porfiry took out a handkerchief and folded it precisely into a neat square. He then used it to dab his face, particularly around his eyes. ‘Allow me to be frank with you, Ruslan Vladimirovich. The case against you is strong, at least as far as the circumstantial evidence is concerned. Your testimony simply does not add up. There are those who would say that you are trying to bamboozle us with this story of the letter.’ Porfiry put the handkerchief away. ‘That your intention is to whip up a mystery to confuse the jury. You are feeding them a doubt, by which you aim to wriggle off the hook. And yet, the fact remains that the simplest, and therefore most likely explanation, is that you shot Setochkin. That you went to his apartment with the intention of shooting him, and indeed of killing him. That you are his murderer.’

‘If you are convinced of this then why are you tormenting me with these questions of brothels?’

Porfiry placed the heel of his right hand into his corresponding eye socket and twisted it. When he took the hand away, he blinked ferociously. Vakhramev watched him uncertainly.

‘Don’t you see? It’s precisely because I am not convinced that I’m asking you this. If I were convinced I would not even be here talking to you. The letter, that mysterious, phantom letter — I believe in it. I am probably the only one who does, apart from yourself. Not only that, I believe it could provide the key to the whole mystery. Who was it from? I know, you cannot say. Can you at least enlighten us as to its content?’

‘It concerned Setochkin. And my daughter, Tatyana. More than that I will not say. A gentleman would not ask.’

‘You don’t understand, do you? You must forget all this business of what a gentleman would or would not ask. I am afraid the rules of gentlemanly conduct no longer apply. We have gone beyond all that. Now we must deal in evidence. The content of the letter constitutes evidence. We cannot see the letter, so we must rely on your account of it. Was it to protect Tatyana that you spirited it away?’

‘I did not. . spirit it away, as you put it. I hate to think whose hands it has fallen into.’

‘Was it something like this?’ Porfiry partially raised the cover of the folder and took out the sheet of white notepaper found in the box under the chair in Dr Meyer’s study.

Vakhramev took the letter. Bewilderment changed to amazement. ‘How extraordinary! It could have been written by the same hand.’

‘Very likely it was,’ said Porfiry. ‘What about the content? Would you say it is broadly similar in tenor?’

‘Well, it was equally nasty, if that’s what you mean.’

‘As you can see, the letter I have shown you makes reference to a licensed brothel on Sadovaya Street. Madam Josephine’s. In an attempt to establish a further connection between the two letters, I am desirous to know whether you ever visited that establishment. ’

‘But sir, I am a respectable married man.’

‘Before you were married, perhaps?’

‘Well, before one was married, one did many things.’

‘Exactly.’ Porfiry smiled encouragingly.

‘Are you married, sir?’

The smile died on Porfiry’s lips. ‘No.’

‘Then how do you solve the problem of needs? I presume you are subject to them. You are a man, after all. You are human?’

‘Indeed.’

‘So?’

Porfiry sensed an anticipatory shifting from Virginsky beside him. He did not deign to turn towards it. ‘We are not here to talk about me,’ he said at last.

‘Humbug. I will not be judged by a hypocritical prig.’

‘I’m not here to judge you,’ said Porfiry. He kept his eyes closed, tensely, as he turned in Vakhramev’s direction. Finally his eyelids fluttered open and he met Vakhramev’s gaze. ‘I have visited an establishment similar to that mentioned in the letter. It is also on Sadovaya Street as it happens, beneath a milliner’s shop. The madam is a German woman, Fräulein Keller. Perhaps you know it?’

‘No sir, I do not,’ Vakhramev answered crisply.

‘Well, then. I have made my confession to you. We are men of the world. We are subject to needs. We can talk openly about these things.’

Porfiry thought that he detected disappointment in Virginsky’s restlessness now.

‘It will go no further?’ Vakhramev leant in.

‘I see no reason why it should. That is to say, I cannot promise. But I will do my best.’