_(The Story of a Crime)_
I
ON the morning of October 6, 1885, a well-dressed young man presented
himself at the office of the police superintendent of the 2nd
division of the S. district, and announced that his employer, a
retired cornet of the guards, called Mark Ivanovitch Klyauzov, had
been murdered. The young man was pale and extremely agitated as he
made this announcement. His hands trembled and there was a look of
horror in his eyes.
"To whom have I the honour of speaking?" the superintendent asked
him.
"Psyekov, Klyauzov's steward. Agricultural and engineering expert."
The police superintendent, on reaching the spot with Psyekov and
the necessary witnesses, found the position as follows.
Masses of people were crowding about the lodge in which Klyauzov
lived. The news of the event had flown round the neighbourhood with
the rapidity of lightning, and, thanks to its being a holiday, the
people were flocking to the lodge from all the neighbouring villages.
There was a regular hubbub of talk. Pale and tearful faces were to
be seen here and there. The door into Klyauzov's bedroom was found
to be locked. The key was in the lock on the inside.
"Evidently the criminals made their way in by the window" Psyekov
observed, as they examined the door.
They went into the garden into which the bedroom window looked. The
window had a gloomy, ominous air. It was covered by a faded green
curtain. One corner of the curtain was slightly turned back, which
made it possible to peep into the bedroom.
"Has anyone of you looked in at the window?" inquired the superintendent.
"No, your honour," said Yefrem, the gardener, a little, grey-haired
old man with the face of a veteran non-commissioned officer. "No
one feels like looking when they are shaking in every limb!"
"Ech, Mark Ivanitch! Mark Ivanitch!" sighed the superintendent, as
he looked at the window. "I told you that you would come to a bad
end! I told you, poor dear--you wouldn't listen! Dissipation leads
to no good!"
"It's thanks to Yefrem," said Psyekov. "We should never have guessed
it but for him. It was he who first thought that something was
wrong. He came to me this morning and said: 'Why is it our master
hasn't waked up for so long? He hasn't been out of his bedroom for
a whole week! When he said that to me I was struck all of a heap
. . . . The thought flashed through my mind at once. He hasn't made
an appearance since Saturday of last week, and to-day's Sunday.
Seven days is no joke!"
"Yes, poor man," the superintendent sighed again. "A clever fellow,
well-educated, and so good-hearted. There was no one like him, one
may say, in company. But a rake; the kingdom of heaven be his! I'm
not surprised at anything with him! Stepan," he said, addressing
one of the witnesses, "ride off this minute to my house and send
Andryushka to the police captain's, let him report to him. Say Mark
Ivanitch has been murdered! Yes, and run to the inspector--why
should he sit in comfort doing nothing? Let him come here. And you
go yourself as fast as you can to the examining magistrate, Nikolay
Yermolaitch, and tell him to come here. Wait a bit, I will write
him a note."
The police superintendent stationed watchmen round the lodge, and
went off to the steward's to have tea. Ten minutes later he was
sitting on a stool, carefully nibbling lumps of sugar, and sipping
tea as hot as a red-hot coal.
"There it is! . . ." he said to Psyekov, "there it is! . . . a
gentleman, and a well-to-do one, too . . . a favourite of the gods,
one may say, to use Pushkin's expression, and what has he made of
it? Nothing! He gave himself up to drinking and debauchery, and
. . . here now . . . he has been murdered!"
Two hours later the examining magistrate drove up. Nikolay Yermolaitch
Tchubikov (that was the magistrate's name), a tall, thick-set old
man of sixty, had been hard at work for a quarter of a century. He
was known to the whole district as an honest, intelligent, energetic
man, devoted to his work. His invariable companion, assistant, and
secretary, a tall young man of six and twenty, called Dyukovsky,
arrived on the scene of action with him.
"Is it possible, gentlemen?" Tchubikov began, going into Psyekov's
room and rapidly shaking hands with everyone. "Is it possible? Mark
Ivanitch? Murdered? No, it's impossible! Imposs-i-ble!"
"There it is," sighed the superintendent
"Merciful heavens! Why I saw him only last Friday. At the fair at
Tarabankovo! Saving your presence, I drank a glass of vodka with
him!"
"There it is," the superintendent sighed once more.
They heaved sighs, expressed their horror, drank a glass of tea
each, and went to the lodge.
"Make way!" the police inspector shouted to the crowd.
On going into the lodge the examining magistrate first of all set
to work to inspect the door into the bedroom. The door turned out
to be made of deal, painted yellow, and not to have been tampered
with. No special traces that might have served as evidence could
be found. They proceeded to break open the door.
"I beg you, gentlemen, who are not concerned, to retire," said the
examining magistrate, when, after long banging and cracking, the
door yielded to the axe and the chisel. "I ask this in the interests
of the investigation. . . . Inspector, admit no one!"
Tchubikov, his assistant, and the police superintendent opened the
door and hesitatingly, one after the other, walked into the room.
The following spectacle met their eyes. In the solitary window stood
a big wooden bedstead with an immense feather bed on it. On the
rumpled feather bed lay a creased and crumpled quilt. A pillow, in
a cotton pillow case--also much creased, was on the floor. On a
little table beside the bed lay a silver watch, and silver coins
to the value of twenty kopecks. Some sulphur matches lay there too.
Except the bed, the table, and a solitary chair, there was no
furniture in the room. Looking under the bed, the superintendent
saw two dozen empty bottles, an old straw hat, and a jar of vodka.
Under the table lay one boot, covered with dust. Taking a look round
the room, Tchubikov frowned and flushed crimson.
"The blackguards!" he muttered, clenching his fists.
"And where is Mark Ivanitch?" Dyukovsky asked quietly.
"I beg you not to put your spoke in," Tchubikov answered roughly.
"Kindly examine the floor. This is the second case in my experience,
Yevgraf Kuzmitch," he added to the police superintendent, dropping
his voice. "In 1870 I had a similar case. But no doubt you remember
it. . . . The murder of the merchant Portretov. It was just the
same. The blackguards murdered him, and dragged the dead body out
of the window."
Tchubikov went to the window, drew the curtain aside, and cautiously
pushed the window. The window opened.
"It opens, so it was not fastened. . . . H'm there are traces on
the window-sill. Do you see? Here is the trace of a knee. . . .
Some one climbed out. . . . We shall have to inspect the window
thoroughly."
"There is nothing special to be observed on the floor," said
Dyukovsky. "No stains, nor scratches. The only thing I have found
is a used Swedish match. Here it is. As far as I remember, Mark
Ivanitch didn't smoke; in a general way he used sulphur ones, never
Swedish matches. This match may serve as a clue. . . ."
"Oh, hold your tongue, please!" cried Tchubikov, with a wave of his
hand. "He keeps on about his match! I can't stand these excitable
people! Instead of looking for matches, you had better examine the
bed!"
On inspecting the bed, Dyukovsky reported:
"There are no stains of blood or of anything else. . . . Nor are
there any fresh rents. On the pillow there are traces of teeth. A
liquid, having the smell of beer and also the taste of it, has been
spilt on the quilt. . . . The general appearance of the bed gives
grounds for supposing there has been a struggle."
"I know there was a struggle without your telling me! No one asked
you whether there was a struggle. Instead of looking out for a
struggle you had better be . . ."
"One boot is here, the other one is not on the scene."
"Well, what of that?"
"Why, they must have strangled him while he was taking off his
boots. He hadn't time to take the second boot off when . . . ."
"He's off again! . . . And how do you know that he was strangled?"
"There are marks of teeth on the pillow. The pillow itself is very
much crumpled, and has been flung to a distance of six feet from
the bed."
"He argues, the chatterbox! We had better go into the garden. You
had better look in the garden instead of rummaging about here. . . .
I can do that without your help."
When they went out into the garden their first task was the inspection
of the grass. The grass had been trampled down under the windows.
The clump of burdock against the wall under the window turned out
to have been trodden on too. Dyukovsky succeeded in finding on it
some broken shoots, and a little bit of wadding. On the topmost
burrs, some fine threads of dark blue wool were found.
"What was the colour of his last suit? Dyukovsky asked Psyekov.
"It was yellow, made of canvas."
"Capital! Then it was they who were in dark blue. . . ."
Some of the burrs were cut off and carefully wrapped up in paper.
At that moment Artsybashev-Svistakovsky, the police captain, and
Tyutyuev, the doctor, arrived. The police captain greeted the others,
and at once proceeded to satisfy his curiosity; the doctor, a tall
and extremely lean man with sunken eyes, a long nose, and a sharp
chin, greeting no one and asking no questions, sat down on a stump,
heaved a sigh and said:
"The Serbians are in a turmoil again! I can't make out what they
want! Ah, Austria, Austria! It's your doing!"
The inspection of the window from outside yielded absolutely no
result; the inspection of the grass and surrounding bushes furnished
many valuable clues. Dyukovsky succeeded, for instance, in detecting
a long, dark streak in the grass, consisting of stains, and stretching
from the window for a good many yards into the garden. The streak
ended under one of the lilac bushes in a big, brownish stain. Under
the same bush was found a boot, which turned out to be the fellow
to the one found in the bedroom.
"This is an old stain of blood," said Dyukovsky, examining the
stain.
At the word "blood," the doctor got up and lazily took a cursory
glance at the stain.
"Yes, it's blood," he muttered.
"Then he wasn't strangled since there's blood," said Tchubikov,
looking malignantly at Dyukovsky.
"He was strangled in the bedroom, and here, afraid he would come
to, they stabbed him with something sharp. The stain under the bush
shows that he lay there for a comparatively long time, while they
were trying to find some way of carrying him, or something to carry
him on out of the garden."
"Well, and the boot?"
"That boot bears out my contention that he was murdered while he
was taking off his boots before going to bed. He had taken off one
boot, the other, that is, this boot he had only managed to get half
off. While he was being dragged and shaken the boot that was only
half on came off of itself. . . ."
"What powers of deduction! Just look at him!" Tchubikov jeered. "He
brings it all out so pat! And when will you learn not to put your
theories forward? You had better take a little of the grass for
analysis instead of arguing!"
After making the inspection and taking a plan of the locality they
went off to the steward's to write a report and have lunch. At lunch
they talked.
"Watch, money, and everything else . . . are untouched," Tchubikov
began the conversation. "It is as clear as twice two makes four
that the murder was committed not for mercenary motives."
"It was committed by a man of the educated class," Dyukovsky put
in.
"From what do you draw that conclusion?"
"I base it on the Swedish match which the peasants about here have
not learned to use yet. Such matches are only used by landowners
and not by all of them. He was murdered, by the way, not by one but
by three, at least: two held him while the third strangled him.
Klyauzov was strong and the murderers must have known that."
"What use would his strength be to him, supposing he were asleep?"
"The murderers came upon him as he was taking off his boots. He was
taking off his boots, so he was not asleep."
"It's no good making things up! You had better eat your lunch!"
"To my thinking, your honour," said Yefrem, the gardener, as he set
the samovar on the table, "this vile deed was the work of no other
than Nikolashka."
"Quite possible," said Psyekov.
"Who's this Nikolashka?"
"The master's valet, your honour," answered Yefrem. "Who else should
it be if not he? He's a ruffian, your honour! A drunkard, and such
a dissipated fellow! May the Queen of Heaven never bring the like
again! He always used to fetch vodka for the master, he always used
to put the master to bed. . . . Who should it be if not he? And
what's more, I venture to bring to your notice, your honour, he
boasted once in a tavern, the rascal, that he would murder his
master. It's all on account of Akulka, on account of a woman. . . .
He had a soldier's wife. . . . The master took a fancy to her and
got intimate with her, and he . . . was angered by it, to be sure.
He's lolling about in the kitchen now, drunk. He's crying . . .
making out he is grieving over the master . . . ."
"And anyone might be angry over Akulka, certainly," said Psyekov.
"She is a soldier's wife, a peasant woman, but . . . Mark Ivanitch
might well call her Nana. There is something in her that does suggest
Nana . . . fascinating . . ."
"I have seen her . . . I know . . ." said the examining magistrate,
blowing his nose in a red handkerchief.
Dyukovsky blushed and dropped his eyes. The police superintendent
drummed on his saucer with his fingers. The police captain coughed
and rummaged in his portfolio for something. On the doctor alone
the mention of Akulka and Nana appeared to produce no impression.
Tchubikov ordered Nikolashka to be fetched. Nikolashka, a lanky
young man with a long pock-marked nose and a hollow chest, wearing
a reefer jacket that had been his master's, came into Psyekov's
room and bowed down to the ground before Tchubikov. His face looked
sleepy and showed traces of tears. He was drunk and could hardly
stand up.
"Where is your master?" Tchubikov asked him.
"He's murdered, your honour."
As he said this Nikolashka blinked and began to cry.
"We know that he is murdered. But where is he now? Where is his
body?"
"They say it was dragged out of window and buried in the garden."
"H'm . . . the results of the investigation are already known in
the kitchen then. . . . That's bad. My good fellow, where were you
on the night when your master was killed? On Saturday, that is?"
Nikolashka raised his head, craned his neck, and pondered.
"I can't say, your honour," he said. "I was drunk and I don't
remember."
"An alibi!" whispered Dyukovsky, grinning and rubbing his hands.
"Ah! And why is it there's blood under your master's window!"
Nikolashka flung up his head and pondered.
"Think a little quicker," said the police captain.
"In a minute. That blood's from a trifling matter, your honour. I
killed a hen; I cut her throat very simply in the usual way, and
she fluttered out of my hands and took and ran off. . . .That's
what the blood's from."
Yefrem testified that Nikolashka really did kill a hen every evening
and killed it in all sorts of places, and no one had seen the
half-killed hen running about the garden, though of course it could
not be positively denied that it had done so.
"An alibi," laughed Dyukovsky, "and what an idiotic alibi."
"Have you had relations with Akulka?"
"Yes, I have sinned."
"And your master carried her off from you?"
"No, not at all. It was this gentleman here, Mr. Psyekov, Ivan
Mihalitch, who enticed her from me, and the master took her from
Ivan Mihalitch. That's how it was."
Psyekov looked confused and began rubbing his left eye. Dyukovsky
fastened his eyes upon him, detected his confusion, and started.
He saw on the steward's legs dark blue trousers which he had not
previously noticed. The trousers reminded him of the blue threads
found on the burdock. Tchubikov in his turn glanced suspiciously
at Psyekov.
"You can go!" he said to Nikolashka. "And now allow me to put one
question to you, Mr. Psyekov. You were here, of course, on the
Saturday of last week?
"Yes, at ten o'clock I had supper with Mark Ivanitch."
"And afterwards?"
Psyekov was confused, and got up from the table.
"Afterwards . . . afterwards . . . I really don't remember," he
muttered. "I had drunk a good deal on that occasion. . . . I can't
remember where and when I went to bed. . . . Why do you all look
at me like that? As though I had murdered him!"
"Where did you wake up?"
"I woke up in the servants' kitchen on the stove . . . . They can
all confirm that. How I got on to the stove I can't say. . . ."
"Don't disturb yourself . . . Do you know Akulina?"
"Oh well, not particularly."
"Did she leave you for Klyauzov?"
"Yes. . . . Yefrem, bring some more mushrooms! Will you have some
tea, Yevgraf Kuzmitch?"
There followed an oppressive, painful silence that lasted for some
five minutes. Dyukovsky held his tongue, and kept his piercing eyes
on Psyekov's face, which gradually turned pale. The silence was
broken by Tchubikov.
"We must go to the big house," he said, "and speak to the deceased's
sister, Marya Ivanovna. She may give us some evidence."
Tchubikov and his assistant thanked Psyekov for the lunch, then
went off to the big house. They found Klyauzov's sister, a maiden
lady of five and forty, on her knees before a high family shrine
of ikons. When she saw portfolios and caps adorned with cockades
in her visitors' hands, she turned pale.
"First of all, I must offer an apology for disturbing your devotions,
so to say," the gallant Tchubikov began with a scrape. "We have
come to you with a request. You have heard, of course, already. . . .
There is a suspicion that your brother has somehow been murdered.
God's will, you know. . . . Death no one can escape, neither Tsar
nor ploughman. Can you not assist us with some fact, something that
will throw light?"
"Oh, do not ask me!" said Marya Ivanovna, turning whiter still, and
hiding her face in her hands. "I can tell you nothing! Nothing! I
implore you! I can say nothing . . . What can I do? Oh, no, no . . .
not a word . . . of my brother! I would rather die than speak!"
Marya Ivanovna burst into tears and went away into another room.
The officials looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and
beat a retreat.
"A devil of a woman!" said Dyukovsky, swearing as they went out of
the big house. "Apparently she knows something and is concealing
it. And there is something peculiar in the maid-servant's expression
too. . . . You wait a bit, you devils! We will get to the bottom
of it all!"
In the evening, Tchubikov and his assistant were driving home by
the light of a pale-faced moon; they sat in their waggonette, summing
up in their minds the incidents of the day. Both were exhausted and
sat silent. Tchubikov never liked talking on the road. In spite of
his talkativeness, Dyukovsky held his tongue in deference to the
old man. Towards the end of the journey, however, the young man
could endure the silence no longer, and began:
"That Nikolashka has had a hand in the business," he said, "_non
dubitandum est_. One can see from his mug too what sort of a chap
he is. . . . His alibi gives him away hand and foot. There is no
doubt either that he was not the instigator of the crime. He was
only the stupid hired tool. Do you agree? The discreet Psyekov plays
a not unimportant part in the affair too. His blue trousers, his
embarrassment, his lying on the stove from fright after the murder,
his alibi, and Akulka."
"Keep it up, you're in your glory! According to you, if a man knows
Akulka he is the murderer. Ah, you hot-head! You ought to be sucking
your bottle instead of investigating cases! You used to be running
after Akulka too, does that mean that you had a hand in this
business?"
"Akulka was a cook in your house for a month, too, but . . . I don't
say anything. On that Saturday night I was playing cards with you,
I saw you, or I should be after you too. The woman is not the point,
my good sir. The point is the nasty, disgusting, mean feeling. . . .
The discreet young man did not like to be cut out, do you see.
Vanity, do you see. . . . He longed to be revenged. Then . . . His
thick lips are a strong indication of sensuality. Do you remember
how he smacked his lips when he compared Akulka to Nana? That he
is burning with passion, the scoundrel, is beyond doubt! And so you
have wounded vanity and unsatisfied passion. That's enough to lead
to murder. Two of them are in our hands, but who is the third?
Nikolashka and Psyekov held him. Who was it smothered him? Psyekov
is timid, easily embarrassed, altogether a coward. People like
Nikolashka are not equal to smothering with a pillow, they set to
work with an axe or a mallet. . . . Some third person must have
smothered him, but who?"
Dyukovsky pulled his cap over his eyes, and pondered. He was silent
till the waggonette had driven up to the examining magistrate's
house.
"Eureka!" he said, as he went into the house, and took off his
overcoat. "Eureka, Nikolay Yermolaitch! I can't understand how it
is it didn't occur to me before. Do you know who the third is?"
"Do leave off, please! There's supper ready. Sit down to supper!"
Tchubikov and Dyukovsky sat down to supper. Dyukovsky poured himself
out a wine-glassful of vodka, got up, stretched, and with sparkling
eyes, said:
"Let me tell you then that the third person who collaborated with
the scoundrel Psyekov and smothered him was a woman! Yes! I am
speaking of the murdered man's sister, Marya Ivanovna!"
Tchubikov coughed over his vodka and fastened his eyes on Dyukovsky.
"Are you . . . not quite right? Is your head . . . not quite right?
Does it ache?"
"I am quite well. Very good, suppose I have gone out of my mind,
but how do you explain her confusion on our arrival? How do you
explain her refusal to give information? Admitting that that is
trivial--very good! All right!--but think of the terms they were
on! She detested her brother! She is an Old Believer, he was a
profligate, a godless fellow . . . that is what has bred hatred
between them! They say he succeeded in persuading her that he was
an angel of Satan! He used to practise spiritualism in her presence!"
"Well, what then?"
"Don't you understand? She's an Old Believer, she murdered him
through fanaticism! She has not merely slain a wicked man, a
profligate, she has freed the world from Antichrist--and that she
fancies is her merit, her religious achievement! Ah, you don't know
these old maids, these Old Believers! You should read Dostoevsky!
And what does Lyeskov say . . . and Petchersky! It's she, it's she,
I'll stake my life on it. She smothered him! Oh, the fiendish woman!
Wasn't she, perhaps, standing before the ikons when we went in to
put us off the scent? 'I'll stand up and say my prayers,' she said
to herself, 'they will think I am calm and don't expect them.'
That's the method of all novices in crime. Dear Nikolay Yermolaitch!
My dear man! Do hand this case over to me! Let me go through with
it to the end! My dear fellow! I have begun it, and I will carry
it through to the end."
Tchubikov shook his head and frowned.
"I am equal to sifting difficult cases myself," he said. "And it's
your place not to put yourself forward. Write what is dictated to
you, that is your business!"
Dyukovsky flushed crimson, walked out, and slammed the door.
"A clever fellow, the rogue," Tchubikov muttered, looking after
him. "Ve-ery clever! Only inappropriately hasty. I shall have to
buy him a cigar-case at the fair for a present."
Next morning a lad with a big head and a hare lip came from Klyauzovka.
He gave his name as the shepherd Danilko, and furnished a very
interesting piece of information.
"I had had a drop," said he. "I stayed on till midnight at my
crony's. As I was going home, being drunk, I got into the river for
a bathe. I was bathing and what do I see! Two men coming along the
dam carrying something black. 'Tyoo!' I shouted at them. They were
scared, and cut along as fast as they could go into the Makarev
kitchen-gardens. Strike me dead, if it wasn't the master they were
carrying!"
Towards evening of the same day Psyekov and Nikolashka were arrested
and taken under guard to the district town. In the town they were
put in the prison tower.