R. Morris - The Gentle Axe

Tolkachenko could say nothing in return. He felt a climactic churning in his besieged stomach. His cheeks bulged and a loud, reverberating burp escaped.

The figure crossed the landing and continued down the stairs.

Tolkachenko was still positioned outside Govorov’s door when he heard Iakov Borisovitch return. He felt as though the darkness had solidified around him.

“Leonid Simonovich!” cried the young civil servant from below. “It’s I, Iakov Borisovitch. I have brought the policeman. And another gentleman.”

“Can we not have a light here?” This voice was unknown to Tolkachenko. A moment later a match flared, and Iakov Borisovitch lit the gas in the hall. The police lieutenant and the “other gentleman” came up the stairs. Their expressions denied Tolkachenko the reassurance he might have hoped for from their presence. Iakov Borisovitch stayed downstairs, close to the front door.

“So he is in there?” whispered Salytov.

“Yes,” confirmed Tolkachenko, also speaking in a low voice. “I have not moved from here. He has not come out. Neither of them has come out.”

“Neither of them?” whispered the other man, whose colorless eyelashes flickered energetically. “So there are two men in there?”

“Yes,” said Tolkachenko. “I heard two men come up the stairs. And two voices inside.”

“Open the door,” demanded Salytov.

Tolkachenko hesitated, deferring to the gentleman who had come with Salytov.

“One moment, Ilya Petrovich. Does it not occur to you that they might be armed?”

Lieutenant Salytov opened his greatcoat and pulled an American revolver from a holster. The gun’s long barrel probed the air like a sleek snout. “I have come prepared, Porfiry Petrovich,” he said.

“Oh!” moaned Tolkachenko.

“We should give them the chance to surrender, I think,” said Porfiry Petrovich. “It is possible we may conclude this business without a shot being fired-or a drop of blood shed.”

Salytov hammered on the door with the butt of his revolver. “You in there! This is the police. You are under arrest. Do you understand?”

There was no answer.

“I should tell you, I heard something,” hissed Tolkachenko. “Before. It sounded like a struggle. A crash. Someone falling over.” Tolkachenko fell silent. His eyes flitted desperately, as though fleeing from something that was forcing itself on his imagination. “Then nothing.”

The frequency of Porfiry Petrovich’s blinking increased sharply. “A fight?” he wondered aloud.

“We have given them a chance,” said Salytov grimly, before Tolkachenko could answer.

Porfiry nodded. “First let us turn off the light out here.”

Salytov nodded back and signaled to Iakov Borisovitch, drawing a hand across his throat and pointing to the light. Iakov Borisovitch stared back, stupefied by the brutality of the gesture. Finally he blinked his enlarged eyes and turned off the gaslight.

“Unlock the door, then stand aside” came Salytov’s command from the darkness.

They waited as Tolkachenko fumbled with the key. They wanted the turning of the key to take forever, and at one moment it seemed as though it would. At last Tolkachenko moved out of the way, ducking into a huddle in the far corner of the landing. Salytov stood on one side of the door frame, Porfiry on the other. The lieutenant turned the handle and pushed the door in. Light from the flat gushed out.

Slowly, leading with the revolver held out in front of him, Salytov edged inside, followed by Porfiry. The room was cold and smelled strongly of vodka. Despite the burning gas, the atmosphere was undeniably lifeless.

They could tell that the man lying facedown on top of a smashed guitar was not going to get up. He was a big man who might have struggled to get to his feet at the best of times. But there was something final about the compact his bulk had made with gravity now.

Porfiry crossed to the body and crouched down to turn the head. The eyes were open but shrunken to dark slits under the frozen puffiness of his face. Salytov prowled the rest of the apartment, still with his revolver extended in front of him.

He came back a moment later, his demeanor perceptibly more relaxed.

“There’s no one here.”

“Are you sure?”

“I have searched the whole place. There is one room adjoining this one, a small kitchen.”

“And the windows?”

“I have checked them all. Locked from the inside. Is that Govorov?” Salytov pointed his pistol toward the body.

Porfiry picked up and sniffed an empty vodka bottle that had been lying on its side near the body. “We will need our friend outside to confirm that. If it is, then I have to confess that this is not the first time I have encountered the elusive Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov.”

One of Salytov’s eyebrows rippled inquisitively.

“I met him once before, in Lyamshin’s Pawnbroker’s. He was pawning a guitar.” Porfiry lifted the broken guitar neck attached by its strings to the crushed sounding box beneath the body. “It seems he found the funds he needed to redeem it.”

" Yes, that’s Govorov,” confirmed Tolkachenko. His expression was startled, almost outraged, as if he had been cheated by the man lying dead on the floor.

Porfiry nodded distractedly. “But you said there were two men in here? You said you heard two voices, did you not?”

“Yes. That’s true.”

Porfiry pointed at the body with an unlit cigarette. “One voice was his?”

Tolkachenko nodded.

“And the other? Did you recognize the other?”

“Well, here is a strange thing,” said Tolkachenko. “I didn’t recognize it. And then I did.”

“What?” barked Salytov.

“I mean, there was this fellow. He came down the stairs. He spoke to me.”

“What did he say?” asked Porfiry, scrutinizing his cigarette as if he had never seen one before.

“‘Good day to you.’ He said, ‘Good day to you.’” This seemed to strike Tolkachenko as the most scandalous aspect of the whole affair.

“I see.”

“Well, the thing is, the really strange thing…it was the same voice.”

“What do you mean, it was the same voice?” Salytov’s impatience showed in the rush of color over his face.

“I mean, it was him. ”

It looked for a moment as though Salytov would strike the yardkeeper.

Porfiry intervened quickly. “You mean the voice of the man on the stairs was the same as the voice of the man whom you had locked inside Govorov’s flat with Govorov?”

“Yes!” cried Tolkachenko.

“But that’s impossible!” Salytov thrashed the air in his frustration.

“Yes!” repeated Tolkachenko, smiling in amazement.

Porfiry finally put the cigarette in his mouth. “So, Ilya Petrovich,” he said. He broke off to light the cigarette. “It seems we have a mystery on our hands.” Porfiry let the smoke escape with his words. “The question is”-he inhaled deeply again and waited before exhaling and continuing-“who was this other person in the flat with Govorov?” Again he paused to draw deeply on the cigarette. “And even more perplexing, how could he be both locked inside the flat and coming down the stairs?” Porfiry smoked the cigarette through, only to be taken aback by the stub. He extinguished it between his thumb and forefinger and then handed it to Tolkachenko, with an absentminded “You may take that.” Tolkachenko frowned at the stub as Porfiry lit a second cigarette. “It is a mystery, but”-Porfiry smoked with professional determination-“I feel confident we will get to the bottom of it. What do you say?”

Salytov didn’t answer. He was lost in angry thought.

“Logic. We must apply logic,” continued Porfiry. “Cold, dispassionate logic. Don’t allow the puzzle to disturb your temper. You cannot solve it if you’re annoyed at it.”