Anatoly Rybakov - THE BRONZE BIRD

Continuing to write, the investigator finally asked:

"Do you think you can show me the place where you found the boat?"

"Of course," Igor replied. "We found it at Peschanaya Kosa."

"How far is that from Khalzin Meadow?"

Misha replied to that question:

"About seven or eight kilometres."

The investigator raised his head and, tapping on the table with his pencil, said:

"Eight kilometres. How did the boat get there? It could not have drifted that far. The river's narrow and crooked. The boat would have got stuck somewhere to the bank. That means somebody took it. Who? Ribalin? But what sense was there for him to take the boat so far away and then come back on foot? Let's suppose the murderer is not Ribalin, but somebody else. And that somebody else took the boat. Why? By doing that he leaves a trail which proves he was in the meadow. What he would normally do was to cover up his tracks and let Ribalin take the rap. The third possibility is that the boat was taken by a stranger. But Kuzmin was murdered yesterday morning and you found the boat on the same morning. Consequently, it was taken right after the murder. That stranger could not help seeing what took place on the bank or, at least, Kuzmin's body."

He thought for a moment, then continued:

"Ribalin flatly denies having anything to do with the murder. The evidence against him is heavy, but the circumstances still need clearing up. One of them, and the most puzzling of all, is the taking of the 'boat. Had the boat been at Peschanaya Kosa it would have made our task easier. But you took it and made a muddle of things. Now everything is much more complicated."

Igor and Seva, feeling very guilty, sat without raising their eyes.

"Are you sure that all you have told me is the truth?" the investigator asked and for the first time gave the boys a look which, in Misha's opinion, was exactly in line with an investigator's job. It was penetrating and stern.

"Word of honour!" Igor and Seva cried in unison.

Misha declared that he could vouch for the boys.

"I believe you," the investigator said, "but I may want to see you again. You'll have to stay in town for a day or two. Have you got any friends you could stay with?"

The boys said that they had no friends in town.

"That makes it a little difficult," the investigator said. "Now here's what we'll do. I'll give you a note to the Gubernia Department of 'Public Education. They'll put you up for two days in an orphanage and then we'll send you back to your camp."

He wrote a note and gave it to Misha.

"Who are we to ask for?"

"Let me see... The person to see is Comrade Serov. He's in charge of the children's establishments."

Serov, Serov... Who was he? The name sounded familiar.

Of course, he was the man who had signed the safeguard for the manor.

"You'll not detain them long?" Misha asked in parting.

"Two days at the most," the investigator replied.

Serov wore the usual dress of a gubernia official: riding breeches, top boots and a khaki service jacket with laid-on pockets. He headed the economic department and had a private office where he sat at a big desk with round, carved legs.

At first sight, Serov reminded Misha of a geometry lesson when he drew cubes and circles. Only at the lesson the cubes and circles had been in rows, while here there was one circle sitting on one cube: on the short, square body was a big, round, completely bald head. There was no neck, just a few folds of fat between the head and the body.

Fat lips, small, quick hazel eyes, and a self-satisfied smile gave Serov the look of a man who had just risen from a well-set table and would not mind returning to it. His square body, thickened by the laid-on pockets on his fat chest, was motionless in the armchair, while the head kept turning in all directions like a doll's, which can be turned or even twisted round several times.

"This note mentions two boys, but there are four of you," Serov said, his quick eyes lighting on each of the boys in turn.

"It's about them," Misha said, pointing to Igor and Seva.

"What does the investigator need them for?"

Misha told him about Kuzmin's murder.

"What Karagayevo?" Serov asked.

"There's a big manor there."

"I know," Serov nodded and meaningfully raised a short fat finger. "A historical monument."

Then in detail he asked about the murder, the camp, the village, and how Igor and Seva went down the river and took the boat. As he listened to Misha, he nodded his head approvingly. The boys could not tell what exactly he approved of. When Misha came to the part about the boatman, Serov threw up his arms and on his face there appeared an expression which seemed to say: "Just look at the things that happen in this big wide world of ours."

Then he suddenly laughed in the shrill way that girls sometimes do and began to tell the boys about the manor and its value as a historical monument. It was the pride of the gubernia, Serov said, and its furnishings were in the local Museum of Regional Studies, in the Life of the 18th-Century Gentry section. As self-respecting Komsomols, it was the boys' duty to look after the manor and refrain from touching or spoiling anything. The manor, Serov said, was the property of the people and it was the duty of real revolutionaries to preserve and guard what belonged to the people.

He spoke rapidly and his quick hazel eyes darted from one boy to another. But the boys badly wanted to sleep. To keep awake, Gen-ka fidgeted in his chair, Igor blinked his eyes, while Seva shook his head which kept falling on his chest. Misha wanted Serov to stop, but he found it impossible to put in a single word.

In conclusion, Serov said:

"Now about the boys. I can't put them up at the orphanages. They are full and we do not have extra rations."

Misha looked at Serov with surprise. Why had he kept them for a whole hour if that had been the case. Evening was close at hand and quarters were still to be found for Igor and Seva.

"That's a how d'you do!" Genka said. "Do you expect them to sleep in the street?"

Serov thought for a moment.

"Have you any friends here?" he asked.

"No."

"Not a single one?"

"No."

"This is what I can do," Serov said suddenly. "I can let the boys stay with me for two days. You're right, we can't very well let them sleep in the street." He shook his bald head sadly. "Fine people they have at the Criminal Investigation Department, summoning youngsters and then leaving them to their own devices. That's how you get waifs. We're righting that, while they're fostering it."

He rose from his armchair. It turned out that though broad-shouldered and stout, he was quite short, in fact, no taller than the boys.

"So that's that," he said. "The boys will stay at my house for two days. I'll see that they're properly fed."

Outside the offices of the Gubernia Department of Public Education, the boys ran into Boris Sergeyevich, the headmaster of a Moscow children's home, who a few days ago had inspected the manor with Korovin and had spoken with the "countess."

Hearing that Misha and his friends had been to see Serov, he asked:

"Ordered you to leave the manor grounds?"

"No, why?" Misha was surprised. "We went to see him about something quite different. I would have told you what about, but," he pointed to Igor and Seva, "I've got to take them to Serov's place."

"I'll go along with you," Boris Sergeyevich said.

On the way, Misha told him what had happened in the past few days. Genka added colourful comments.

"There are two orphanages in this town," Boris Sergeyevich said, shrugging his shoulders. "Both are half empty. I wonder why Serov didn't send the boys to one of them? I can't understand it."