R. Morris - The Gentle Axe

“He went into the gentleman’s room.”

“So what happened next?”

“He was such a little man. He was much smaller than me, and yet he was a man.”

“Yes. But what happened after he went into the room?”

“The gentleman quit his room. The ordinary-size gentleman, I mean.”

“And the dwarf?”

“He didn’t come out. The other man paid his bill and paid for another week in advance as well. A whole week in advance! He said the dwarf was taking over his room and would want it for another week. But this is the thing, you see. I went back to the room. To see if there was anything the dwarf wanted. I knocked on the door. No answer. I opened the door. Nobody there. The room was empty. There was no sign of him.”

“He must have gone when you were with the other gentleman.”

“I would have seen him. There’s only one way out. Down the corridor and past the reception. He hadn’t been that way, I’m telling you. I was watching all the time. I wouldn’t have missed him. Even though he was such a tiny fellow.” Dmitri became heated in his insistence.

“He must have climbed out of the window then!” said Porfiry.

“No!” shouted Dmitri, amazed at Porfiry’s stupidity. “There is no window. It’s the room under the stairs.”

“I see. Very interesting.”

“He must be some kind of goblin, don’t you think?”

“I would incline toward a more rational explanation.”

“A wizard then? Or some such.”

“Tell me, did you carry the gentleman’s luggage out for him?”

“No!” The boy cried out in remembered indignation. “He wouldn’t let me. Insisted on carrying it out himself, didn’t he? Wanted to do me out of a tip, I’m sure.”

“I believe he may have had other reasons,” began Porfiry with a pleasant flicker of his eyelids, “for holding on to the suitcase so jealously.”

The boy’s look of indignation turned slowly to one of horror. “He was in the case! The dwarf was in the case!”

“The guest, the gentleman who sent you on your mission and whom the dw-the smaller gentleman, Goryanchikov, visited…you don’t happen to remember his name, do you?”

“Did he murder him? Did he murder the dwarf? And put him in the case?”

“It is a possibility.”

“And what if he comes back to murder me?”

“If you help me catch him, I shall make sure he cannot come back and murder you. I shall make sure he can never hurt anyone else again.”

“That’s what you say.”

“It is indeed what I say. Now, please, can you remember the guest’s name?”

“Govorov.”

Porfiry felt somehow that he had expected this. He believed he was not surprised. And yet he felt his pulse quicken at the mention of Govorov.

“Now you will write that thing for the tsar,” said Dmitri. “I should get a gold medal for this. I’ve risked my life.”

Porfiry blinked himself into concentration. “The citation? I shall be glad to. But first I have just one more question for you. After you had delivered your message to Goryanchikov, you then stopped off at the yardkeeper’s shed. Is this not true?”

Porfiry watched in amazement as the boy’s face colored and collapsed beneath an overwhelming surge of emotion. He had forgotten that this was a child he was dealing with. Thick streams of sudden tears ran from Dmitri’s eyes, clearing tracks in the dirt on his face. He howled his unhappiness: “It’s not fair. I’ve answered all your questions, then you ask me more questions. I’ve done nothing wrong. You can’t keep me here. You promised me a medal. Give me my medal.”

Porfiry cast a glance of appeal toward Katya. But she was having none of it. She scowled suspiciously. Her hand was reaching out as if to grab Dmitri’s ear again. Porfiry stepped forward and reached out to restrain her.

In that instant, Dmitri’s hand flashed into the pocket of Porfiry’s frock coat. Then, in the tail of the same instant, he was at the door and opening it. Porfiry suddenly felt the truth of Nikodim Fomich’s observation. He was rooted to the spot by age and by his tobacco-shortened breaths. The boy’s sudden move had not just taken him by surprise, it had left him winded, his body incapable of responding to the excited chemicals surging through it. His first impulse had been to light up rather than give chase.

At the door, thrown open by the fleeing Dmitri, Porfiry’s cry of “Stop him!” was smothered in a coughing fit. It turned a few puzzled, a few curious, but mostly blank faces. One elderly polizyeisky, surely long past retirement age, seemed to grasp what was going on. He saw the young, filthy urchin running full tilt toward him, away from the investigating magistrate. The polizyeisky dropped eagerly to a catching posture, spreading his feet and stretching out his arms. Something kindled in his eyes: sport and the memory of a youthful energy. Bobbing with anticipation, he possessed the narrowed space between two desks, effectively blocking Dmitri’s only escape route. But the boy did not slow his pace. If anything he accelerated, hurtling straight toward the human obstacle. Then, at the last minute, as the elderly polizyeisky reeled and readied himself for impact, groping the air and masticating nervously, the boy leaped to one side, vaulting onto one of the desks. It was a startling feat-fearless and marvelously athletic. There was no break in the fluidity of his movement. The sweep of his boots sent paper fluttering, upturning an inkpot that bled a quick puddle of black over the desk. He rose from his leap with perfect balance, head high, legs kicking. In two thundering steps he was across the desk and off the other side. The clerk behind it threw up his hands in impotent outrage, but the polizyeisky blew out his cheeks, spontaneously admiring.

In the time that it took to accomplish all this, Porfiry lit a cigarette.

“You let him get away,” accused Katya, when Porfiry turned back into his chambers. “After all the trouble I went to to bring him in. And I don’t suppose I’ll be getting a medal from the tsar.”

Porfiry licked a loose fleck of tobacco from his upper lip as he considered her antagonism. “I know where to find him,” he said nonchalantly. “I remain grateful to you, Katya. And as a representative of the state, I am confident the tsar is grateful too.” He bowed solemnly, blinking, as if he had been officially authorized to reward her with the rapid oscillation of his eyelids.

A fool’s errand, it was another fool’s errand.

Lieutenant Salytov descended into the seventh tavern that day. How the smell of these places sickened him. The air, abrasive with hard spirit, licked his eyes into weeping. He was jostled on the stairs by two drunks leaving. Nothing malicious-it was simply that they could not control their shoulders. They seemed to be attracted to him magnetically.

The rub of their filthy coats, the sense of their awkward humanity beneath, disgusted him. The unshakable absurdity of it disgusted him.

His rage made it difficult for him to speak.

“Oaf.” With leather-gloved hands, he pushed one of them away and was horrified by the heavy, beseeching roll of the man’s eyes and the grim, clownish slapstick of his tread. “You-” Salytov’s throat tightened around the words he could have said. “People!” It was all he was able to squeeze out. But he was satisfied by the word. He felt it placed a distance between himself and such individuals.

The drunk’s answer was a deep and inarticulate growling.

His companion gripped the handrail of the stairs and swayed as if he were at the prow of a listing ship. He swallowed portentously. His body lurched dangerously after Salytov as he passed. But the sober policeman moved too quickly for him. He left them on the stairs and did not look back.