R. Morris - A Razor Wrapped in Silk

Porfiry’s smile acquired a degree of tension. ‘Please,’ he said, though it was not clear whether he was pleading with the drawer or begging for Mizinchikov’s indulgence. He crouched down and peered into the narrow gap created by the partially open drawer.

‘Ah! I think I see what is causing it. The very letters we were talking about.’

Porfiry took the letter knife from his desk and poked it into the gap, easing the recalcitrant letters down. He beamed a smile of satisfaction to Mizinchikov as the drawer at last eased open. ‘There! Nothing to it.’

He held the bundle of letters aloft triumphantly. It was as if the ribbon was not simply binding together the sheets of paper, but also holding in the secrets written on them. Mizinchikov started at the appearance of the letters. His body tensed, suddenly alert. He watched closely, his face rippling with apprehension and even horror, as Porfiry slipped the bow.

‘You recognise the letters, of course?’

Mizinchikov said nothing. The muscles around his infected left eye went into spasm.

‘They are letters from Yelena Filippovna. To you. Would you like to look at them?’

The twitch of Mizinchikov’s head may have been an angry shake of negation, or an involuntary muscular contraction without significance. In any event, he made no move to take the letters Porfiry held out to him.

‘What did you do?’ asked Porfiry thoughtfully, almost seductively.

Mizinchikov’s brows contracted in confusion.

‘What was the shameful act that sullied you and insulted her?’

Mizinchikov’s eyes squeezed out a wince of remembrance. ‘I agreed to take Bakhmutov’s money. I … loved her. But I did not see what the harm could be … if Bakhmutov wanted to pay me to do the very thing I most wanted to do — to marry her.’ His voice became leaden. ‘She did not see it like that.’

‘She broke with you then?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you did not get the money, after all.’

‘I didn’t care about the money. The money was for her. But she would have nothing to do with it.’

‘And so she rejected you in favour of Prince Naryskin. Some might say that would give you a motive to kill her. Jealousy.’

‘If I had killed her, I would not have run away. It was only because I did not kill her that I ran away.’

‘An interesting paradox. It suggests that you regret not killing her. That you saw that, somehow, as a failure.’

Before Mizinchikov could answer, the door opened and Zamyotov entered. He held the red silk parcel out in front of him, and waved it tantalisingly at Porfiry.

‘Thank you, Alexander Grigorevich. Will you pass the item to this gentleman so that he may examine it?’

‘Gentleman?’ Zamyotov crimped his brows in a deliberate frown and looked over Mizinchikov’s head, as if he wasn’t there.

‘Captain Mizinchikov is a gentleman, despite appearances. Please hand him the razor.’

Zamyotov made clear his scepticism, as well as his repugnance, as he handed it over. Turning to make his exit, he noticed Alexei Ivanovich asleep on the sofa. He shook his head and quickened his step, as if to escape from a madhouse. The door closed behind him with a clatter.

Porfiry nodded reassuringly to Mizinchikov. The captain looked down at the object in his hands. He folded back the silk to reveal the sleek, self-contained implement, freighted with dire potential. Its appearance provoked no particular reaction in him, apart from a shrug of indifference. ‘It’s a razor.’

‘You do not recognise it?’

‘I have never seen it before in my life.’

‘Well then, we must presume that someone placed it in your drawer without your knowing. But who? Who would have an opportunity for doing such a thing, or a reason?’ Porfiry’s face lit up with realisation. ‘Of course! Who else?’

The others bristled with impatience as he took out and lit a cigarette.

‘Don’t you see, Pavel Pavlovich? What possible reason could someone have for planting this razor in Captain Mizinchikov’s desk drawer?’

‘To incriminate him?’ Virginsky’s answer lacked conviction.

‘Ah, but it is a very crude attempt at incrimination, is it not? For we have already deduced that this razor could not possibly have been the murder weapon.’

‘Why then?’ said Virginsky irritably.

‘What if it was put there not to incriminate him, but to prompt him? To drive him to it.’ Porfiry turned to Mizinchikov. ‘When was the last time Yelena Filippovna visited you at the Officers’ House?’

‘It was the day before her death.’

‘You believe Yelena Filippovna planted the razor?’ put in Virginsky incredulously.

Porfiry widened his eyes, as if disbelieving Virginsky’s disbelief. ‘Could it not be seen as part of her attempt to goad the captain into killing her? Its proximity to her letters, so taunting in tone, is unquestionably significant.’ He turned back to Mizinchikov. ‘What was her mood when she came to see you that day?’

‘She was in a state of terrible agitation.’

‘Did she seek to provoke you in any way?’

Mizinchikov gave a bitter laugh. ‘When did she ever not?’

‘But more so than usual?’

‘There were some new provocations that day, it’s true. Of the kind that are particularly wounding to a man’s pride.’

Both Porfiry and Virginsky bowed their heads in unspoken and specifically male sympathy. There was a knock at the door, to which they all turned, as if in relief. The door flew open and Nikodim Fomich burst in, followed by the severely well-groomed and upright presence of the prokuror , Yaroslav Nikolaevich Liputin, Porfiry’s superior. The latter’s step was measured: he came into the room almost reluctantly, as though he was unwilling to be drawn into whatever was taking place within. He took in the sleeping man on the sofa with a sneer of distaste, which deepened when he saw the disreputable-looking individual sitting opposite Porfiry Petrovich.

‘Is this him?’ said Nikodim Fomich breathlessly. ‘The missing Guards officer?’

‘Yes, this is Captain Mizinchikov.’

‘So … you have his confession?’

Porfiry’s expression froze into a complicated smile, fraught with irony and unease. ‘He has confessed … to something. But not to the crime you have in mind. And he did not commit the crime to which he has confessed.’

‘This is hardly satisfactory,’ declared Liputin impatiently. He scowled down at Mizinchikov. ‘Porfiry Petrovich, you will step outside with us for a moment.’

Porfiry bowed deferentially and rose to his feet to follow the police chief and the prokuror out of his chambers.

‘You must get a confession out of him, Porfiry Petrovich,’ commanded Liputin as soon as the door was closed behind them. ‘By whatever means.’ The force with which he insisted on this caused Zamyotov to look up from his desk.

‘But with respect, Yaroslav Nikolaevich, what if he is telling the truth?’ protested Porfiry.

‘He had her blood all over him. How does he explain that?’

‘He does not need to. The blood on his tunic was venous, not arterial. Therefore it did not come from her lacerated neck.’

‘We need not go into these distinctions. They are too subtle for a jury to understand. Blood is blood, after all. He was seen fleeing the crime scene. All this speaks against him.’

‘But a defence lawyer would tear the case apart.’

‘That is why you must get a confession from him,’ insisted Liputin. ‘I hear that Lieutenant Salytov is particularly skilled at extracting confessions.’

‘That’s true,’ chimed in Nikodim Fomich. Porfiry glared at him with the fury of a betrayed man.

‘Presumably this Guards officer came here to confess, just like that student. What was his name?’