R. Morris - A Vengeful Longing

‘Are you Nikolai Nobody?’

‘Am I?’ Rostanev looked about the room conspiratorially. ‘My lips are sealed,’ he added, at last.

‘Have you ever bought chocolates from Ballet’s the confectioner’s? ’

‘On Nevsky Prospekt? I know it well.’

‘That’s right.’

‘No.’ Rostanev shook his head forlornly, as though he were sorry to disappoint. ‘I cannot afford to shop there.’

‘And yet the name Rostanev shows up in one of their order books.’

Rostanev chuckled. ‘That is a striking coincidence.’

‘The address of this Rostanev is given as care of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Chernyshov Square.’

‘Even more striking!’

‘And outside Ballet’s you contrived to bump into Dr Meyer,’ pressed Porfiry, ‘switching the box of chocolates he purchased for one contaminated with poison.’

‘Who has said this? Who accuses me of this?’

‘Did you also send an anonymous letter to Gorshkov the factory worker?’

‘I don’t know. Did I? I suppose I must have. I have sent a lot of letters. I confess to sending the letters. That I know I did. But I never bumped into anyone. I am not the sort who bumps into people. I would always far rather step to one side. I am a stepper-to-the-side. Not a bumper-into.’

‘What?’

‘The world is divided into three types of men. Steppers-to-the-side, unbudgeables and bumpers-into. I am a stepper-to-the-side.’

‘I see. I confess I have never viewed the world in that light before.’

‘I can see that you are an unbudgeable.’

‘What about Ferfichkin? The tailor who sewed a fur collar on a coat for you. Into which category would you place him?’

‘Unbudgeable.’

‘So you do admit that you know Ferfichkin?’ pressed Porfiry.

‘As you say, he sewed a collar on to a coat.’

‘Yes. A fur collar. It is strange that you could afford a fur collar and yet you say you cannot afford to shop at Ballet’s.’

‘To pay for the collar I was forced to secure an advance on my salary. The necessity of paying that back led to a degree of embarrassment that precluded the, uh, aforementioned, herewith, withal, uh, etcetera etcetera, your obedient servant, Rostanev, A. I.’

‘You purchased the collar but could not afford to pay for it to be sewn on to your coat. You owed Ferfichkin money, did you not?’

‘And he owed me a coat.’

‘I see. Ferfichkin is dead. He was murdered. Stabbed through the heart by a man he bumped into.’

‘No? He was a bumper-into, after all?’

‘We can connect you with all three murders. Indeed, I would say that there are enough prima facie connections to make a case.’

‘Then it must be true,’ said Rostanev. ‘I must have done it.’ He scratched his lank-haired head in some perplexity. ‘Goodness knows what I was thinking.’

The following morning, the Thursday of the third week after Raisa and Grigory’s deaths, Porfiry was turning the pages of the latest issue of the Periodical . He was smoking, with a languid and almost nostalgic sensuousness. From time to time he emitted a heavy sigh, as if overcome by ennui. Whether he was more absorbed in the act of smoking, or that of reading, was hard to say. At any rate, his countenance discouraged interruption.

Virginsky sat at his station by the window and sorted through the case files, trying to bring some order to the clutter he had accumulated. Occasionally, he would be drawn by one of Porfiry’s sighs to look up wonderingly, only to find the magistrate sealed off from all enquiry. However, after one particularly prolonged sigh, he met Porfiry’s eye at last.

‘He is either an innocent lunatic or a very clever dissembler,’ said Porfiry. Prompted by Virginsky’s quizzical frown, he added, ‘I believe we will soon be able to tell for certain which.’

Porfiry lit another cigarette and went back to scanning the journal. After a few moments, he broke off with a jerk of his head and looked down at a number of flies lurching across his desk. Without taking his eyes off them, as though he wished to misdirect them, he rolled up his copy of the Periodical . Then he began to beat the desk furiously with it. He did not seem to be aiming at specific flies, but rather striking at random, with the intention of getting in as many blows as possible over the widest area, in the shortest possible time.

Virginsky watched open-mouthed.

When the frenzied swatting was over, the desk was strewn with insect corpses, as well as a few twitching, mutilated, but still living, specimens. Porfiry turned a smile of triumph towards Virginsky. Not meeting with the validation he had hoped for, Porfiry turned up the underside of the rolled journal to discover a few squashed flies stuck there. He frowned and then dropped the journal into the waste-paper bin by his chair.

Virginsky shuddered out his incredulity. ‘But aren’t the connections overwhelming? He admits to writing the letters. He went to Chermak High School. His name is in the Ballet’s order book.’

‘And he is conveniently mad, of course. Do not forget that.’

Virginsky frowned thoughtfully. ‘What do you intend to do now?’

Porfiry didn’t answer. He looked down at the dead flies on his desk.

There was a knock at the door.

‘Yes,’ called Porfiry.

Lieutenant Salytov came in, bearing a disintegrating cardboard box. He carried it hurriedly over to Porfiry’s desk where he let it drop. ‘We found these in Rostanev’s room. Letters. Hundreds of them.’

Porfiry picked several out at random. ‘They are very much in the style of the letter he sent to Dr Meyer. The handwriting matches exactly.’ Sorting through the letters in his hand, he brandished one eagerly. ‘Ah! The letter to Gorshkov. It seems that, in typical civil service style, he made a copy of each letter before he sent it. I am confident that we will find copies of the letters sent to Meyer and Vakhramev in this box.’ Porfiry read the letter out loud. ‘“To my dear friend Mr Gorshkov, how I feel for you. To lose a child is painful enough. But to have your pain mocked by a miserable skinflint who is not fit to touch the hem of your dead baby’s blanket. I am referring to the ogre Ferfichkin, who slanders you around the city as a madman and a debtor. I myself heard him say that he would dig your dear Anastasya out of the earth and boil her bones to make a poultice just to teach you a lesson. That is the kind of man Ferfichkin is. And to think he lives, and grows fat on pies and sweetmeats, while your poor baby lies rotting in a flimsy cardboard coffin. Yours in sympathy, a well-wisher.”’ Porfiry blinked thoughtfully. ‘You will notice he signs himself “A well-wisher” every time. There is another, more significant pattern to them, however.’ He looked at Virginsky enquiringly.

‘He is, in every case, providing the recipient with a motive for murder.’

Porfiry nodded grimly.

‘Goading them to it,’ added Salytov darkly.

‘Perhaps,’ said Porfiry.

‘The letters certainly are designed to touch a raw nerve,’ said Virginsky.

‘He pushes them and pushes them. But they actually commit the murders,’ continued Salytov. ‘The men you let go,’ he added pointedly.

‘And how is the investigation into the possibility of a revolutionary cell at Ballet’s the confectioner’s progressing, Ilya Petrovich?’ asked Porfiry in retaliation. ‘I understand Nikodim Fomich was to assign some men to it. Have any significant leads come to light that I ought to be informed of?’

‘Nothing significant, so far,’ answered Salytov resentfully. ‘Perhaps the boy and his associates are not involved in these murders, as I first thought. However, I remain convinced that they are criminal and possibly dangerous individuals. Time may yet prove me right.’