R. Morris - A Vengeful Longing

‘But the man was always tormenting me. You would never believe it! He was a torturer! He would never come when I called him. He behaved as though I was the servant and he the master. And when I happened to make a legitimate complaint about his behaviour, he became mortally offended. He accused me of slander, although there was only he and I there. How ridiculous , I think you’ll agree. I believe he didn’t really understand the law. So, as a joke, I made him go round to the police station and press charges against me. Of course, the police saw it was an absurd joke and sent him away with a flea in his ear.’ Yefimov began to laugh again.

His laughter had the effect on Porfiry of cutlery scraped on a plate. ‘Everything is a joke to you,’ he said, in a dead, flat tone.

Yefimov shrugged and struggled to resume his former control.

‘You have heard about Rostanev?’ asked Porfiry.

‘You arrested him. I have not heard a thing since then.’

‘We released him without charge.’

‘I see.’ Yefimov gave every impression of being surprised by this. ‘He has not presented himself at the department.’

‘He is dead.’ There was a stirring of the scribes behind Yefimov.

‘I know nothing about it.’ Yefimov was smiling as he said this.

‘He died through loss of blood, caused by an act of self-mutilation. ’

‘Poor mad fellow.’

‘Was he, do you know, an initiate of the skoptsy sect?’

‘You will have to ask some of the others, some of those who knew him better than I did. I really cannot say.’ Yefimov gestured towards the clerks, who had begun to put down their quills as the discussion held them.

‘Who conducted the public health inspection of the apartment building opposite the Novo-Alexandrovsky Market on the nineteenth of June? It’s on Izmailovsky Prospekt near Sadovaya Street.’

‘I will have to consult the department diary.’

‘Perhaps this will help to jog your memory. I am referring to Colonel Setochkin’s building. The sanitation inspection in question took place on the day that Colonel Setochkin was murdered.’

‘That really doesn’t help, as I have no idea who Colonel Setochkin is.’

Porfiry raised both his eyebrows. ‘I find that hard to believe. Of course, I can quite understand that Colonel Setochkin had little idea who you were — you are after all a truly insignificant individual. If ever he came across you, he would surely have failed to notice you. You are the kind of man one looks straight through. Your face, I find, is not one that imposes itself upon the memory. Have you not found this to be the case?’

Yefimov did not reply.

‘I take that as an affirmative. Yes, I look at you and I think: here is the eternally low-ranking civil servant, if not embittered by failure, then certainly inured to ineffectualness. A man no longer young, but who has not successfully passed beyond a certain moment in his youth, a moment before his dreams have soured, his ambitions become frustrated and his ideals smothered — the moment, in other words, when he can believe himself still the commander of his own destiny. To hold on to that moment, despite a lifetime of clearly evidenced disappointment, requires a level of egotism and vanity that is almost admirable. And yet, my friend, you have to admit it: yours is the kind of face that is forgotten the instant you turn from it. In the past, when you were a young man wanting to make an impression on the world, no doubt this was deeply irksome to you. But now, given your recent activities, I am sure you have found it distinctly to your advantage.’

‘I confess I have no idea to what you are referring.’

‘You would disappoint me if you said that you did. However, let us agree that someone from this department carried out the inspection at Setochkin’s building that day.’

‘I really cannot agree that without checking.’

‘There is no need to do that. Your eagerness to check the diary leads me to believe that there will be no record of the inspection. And yet there is the testimony of Setochkin’s butler. He spoke of the visit of a public health inspector. Is it usual in such inspections for there to be a certain amount of going in and out of the apartments? ’

‘It may be necessary.’

‘It must be inconvenient for the residents.’

‘One endeavours to demonstrate a degree of consideration.’

‘So you have carried out such inspections yourself?’

‘On occasion.’

‘You try to make yourself unobtrusive?’

‘At this time of the year many apartments are vacated, those belonging to the better class of person at least. The inconvenience is minimised.’

‘I can imagine. Most of the time, they do not know you are there. It would be possible for you to be admitted to an apartment and then forgotten about, especially if the tenant had become used to your comings and goings.’

Yefimov said nothing.

‘You might, let us imagine, enter one apartment, go out on to the balcony — this was a building with a certain number of balconies overlooking the courtyard — and attach to a bar of the balcony a rope ladder that you had concealed about your person. Yes? So far at least it is theoretically possible? And so, when you have assured yourself that the yard is empty, you descend to the balcony below. There you lie in wait until an opportunity presents itself. An opportunity to point the pistol that you had earlier purloined from this second apartment through a windowpane, also opened earlier, in order to fatally shoot the resident of that apartment. You then toss the pistol through the open pane, causing it to land on the floor of the study. At the same time, you are able to retrieve a letter that your victim must have just placed on a desk by the window. That was a stroke of luck that you exploited to cast doubt on Vakhramev’s story perhaps. To confuse the doltish police. Or simply you could not resist taking with you a small memento of your cleverness. Then it would be a simple matter for you to climb immediately back up the rope ladder, which you would pull up after you, and then go back into the first apartment. We will admit that it called for exceptional daring. Or perhaps, rather, it was simply that you were blinded to the danger by your arrogance — by your own incredible belief in your superior intellect, which is in itself a limitation, a failure of the imagination. Did it not occur to you that you might have been seen? At any rate, you were lucky. But as you have said, many apartments are vacant at this time of year.’

‘But why would I do it?’

‘We will come to that in a moment. You were the one who bumped into Dr Meyer outside Ballet’s, were you not? You substituted the chocolates he dropped with another box, which you had previously contaminated with poison. As an official of the Ministry of Public Health you would have access to aconite, as well as the medical understanding necessary. Were you trained as a doctor?’

‘I did embark upon the study of medicine, although I did not complete the course.’

‘A disappointment, no doubt, for you. One of many, I am sure. Are you aware that you killed Raisa Ivanovna’s son Grigory as well as Raisa Ivanovna, your intended victim?’

‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘You were the one at the brothel with Vakhramev, Golyadkin and Devushkin.’

‘Those names mean nothing to me.’

‘Come now, you were at school with Golyadkin, were you not? You will not deny that you attended the Chermak Private High School in Moscow? Your name is on the list of pupils, by the way. You were in Golyadkin’s class.’

‘I. .’ Yefimov did not deny it.

‘Tell me, what happened between you and Raisa Ivanovna all those years ago? What did she do that was so terrible that you harboured your resentment, your vengeful longing, we might call it, for so long? You went to the brothel — uninvited , what bitter pleasure it gave you to describe yourself in those terms. You saw yourself, no doubt, as better than the other men, with whom you had already quarrelled. You had an appreciation of beauty to which they were blind. You had a soul. Were you overcome by some romantic notion — a philosophical idea almost? You saw this girl, so young, so lost. You were young too, then. In a moment of romantic madness, you offered her a way out. Was that it? Or was it just a joke to you, all along? Anyhow, she came to you, to your apartment. We have the testimony of a former associate of hers that something like this happened, although the woman in question did not name you, of course. At any rate, Raisa Ivanovna saw you as you really are — with Ferfichkin, your servant. The terrible, humiliating relationship you had with Ferfichkin — the torturer. She saw how pathetic and squalid your life really was.’