_THE SAFETY MATCH_
On the morning of October 6, 1885, in the office of the Inspector of
Police of the second division of S---- District, there appeared a
respectably dressed young man, who announced that his master, Marcus
Ivanovitch Klausoff, a retired officer of the Horse Guards, separated
from his wife, had been murdered. While making this announcement the
young man was white and terribly agitated. His hands trembled and his
eyes were full of terror.
"Whom have I the honor of addressing?" asked the inspector.
"Psyekoff, Lieutenant Klausoff's agent; agriculturist and
mechanician!"
The inspector and his deputy, on visiting the scene of the occurrence
in company with Psyekoff, found the following: Near the wing in which
Klausoff had lived was gathered a dense crowd. The news of the murder
had sped swift as lightning through the neighborhood, and the
peasantry, thanks to the fact that the day was a holiday, had hurried
together from all the neighboring villages. There was much commotion
and talk. Here and there, pale, tear-stained faces were seen. The door
of Klausoff's bedroom was found locked. The key was inside.
"It is quite clear that the scoundrels got in by the window!" said
Psyekoff as they examined the door.
They went to the garden, into which the bedroom window opened. The
window looked dark and ominous. It was covered by a faded green
curtain. One corner of the curtain was slightly turned up, which made
it possible to look into the bedroom.
"Did any of you look into the window?" asked the inspector.
"Certainly not, your worship!" answered Ephraim, the gardener, a
little gray-haired old man, who looked like a retired sergeant. "Who's
going to look in, if all their bones are shaking?"
"Ah, Marcus Ivanovitch, Marcus Ivanovitch!" sighed the inspector,
looking at the window, "I told you you would come to a bad end! I told
the dear man, but he wouldn't listen! Dissipation doesn't bring any
good!"
"Thanks to Ephraim," said Psyekoff; "but for him, we would never have
guessed. He was the first to guess that something was wrong. He comes
to me this morning, and says: 'Why is the master so long getting up?
He hasn't left his bedroom for a whole week!' The moment he said that,
it was just as if some one had hit me with an ax. The thought flashed
through my mind, 'We haven't had a sight of him since last Saturday,
and to-day is Sunday'! Seven whole days--not a doubt of it!"
"Ay, poor fellow!" again sighed the inspector. "He was a clever
fellow, finely educated, and kind-hearted at that! And in society,
nobody could touch him! But he was a waster, God rest his soul! I was
prepared for anything since he refused to live with Olga Petrovna.
Poor thing, a good wife, but a sharp tongue! Stephen!" the inspector
called to one of his deputies, "go over to my house this minute, and
send Andrew to the captain to lodge an information with him! Tell him
that Marcus Ivanovitch has been murdered. And run over to the orderly;
why should he sit there, kicking his heels? Let him come here! And go
as fast as you can to the examining magistrate, Nicholas
Yermolaïyevitch. Tell him to come over here! Wait; I'll write him a
note!"
The inspector posted sentinels around the wing, wrote a letter to the
examining magistrate, and then went over to the director's for a glass
of tea. Ten minutes later he was sitting on a stool, carefully
nibbling a lump of sugar, and swallowing the scalding tea.
"There you are!" he was saying to Psyekoff; "there you are! A noble by
birth! a rich man--a favorite of the gods, you may say, as Pushkin has
it, and what did he come to? He drank and dissipated and--there you
are--he's murdered."
After a couple of hours the examining magistrate drove up. Nicholas
Yermolaïyevitch Chubikoff--for that was the magistrate's name--was a
tall, fleshy old man of sixty, who had been wrestling with the duties
of his office for a quarter of a century. Everybody in the district
knew him as an honest man, wise, energetic, and in love with his work.
He was accompanied to the scene of the murder by his inveterate
companion, fellow worker, and secretary, Dukovski, a tall young fellow
of twenty-six.
"Is it possible, gentlemen?" cried Chubikoff, entering Psyekoff's
room, and quickly shaking hands with everyone. "Is it possible? Marcus
Ivanovitch? Murdered? No! It is impossible! Im-poss-i-ble!"
"Go in there!" sighed the inspector.
"Lord, have mercy on us! Only last Friday I saw him at the fair in
Farabankoff. I had a drink of vodka with him, save the mark!"
"Go in there!" again sighed the inspector.
They sighed, uttered exclamations of horror, drank a glass of tea
each, and went to the wing.
"Get back!" the orderly cried to the peasants.
Going to the wing, the examining magistrate began his work by
examining the bedroom door. The door proved to be of pine, painted
yellow, and was uninjured. Nothing was found which could serve as a
clew. They had to break in the door.
"Everyone not here on business is requested to keep away!" said the
magistrate, when, after much hammering and shaking, the door yielded
to ax and chisel. "I request this, in the interest of the
investigation. Orderly, don't let anyone in!"
Chubikoff, his assistant, and the inspector opened the door, and
hesitatingly, one after the other, entered the room. Their eyes met
the following sight: Beside the single window stood the big wooden bed
with a huge feather mattress. On the crumpled feather bed lay a
tumbled, crumpled quilt. The pillow, in a cotton pillow-case, also
much crumpled, was dragging on the floor. On the table beside the bed
lay a silver watch and a silver twenty-kopeck piece. Beside them lay
some sulphur matches. Beside the bed, the little table, and the single
chair, there was no furniture in the room. Looking under the bed, the
inspector saw a couple of dozen empty bottles, an old straw hat, and a
quart of vodka. Under the table lay one top boot, covered with dust.
Casting a glance around the room, the magistrate frowned and grew red
in the face.
"Scoundrels!" he muttered, clenching his fists.
"And where is Marcus Ivanovitch?" asked Dukovski in a low voice.
"Mind your own business!" Chubikoff answered roughly. "Be good enough
to examine the floor! This is not the first case of the kind I have
had to deal with! Eugraph Kuzmitch," he said, turning to the
inspector, and lowering his voice, "in 1870 I had another case like
this. But you must remember it--the murder of the merchant
Portraitoff. It was just the same there. The scoundrels murdered him,
and dragged the corpse out through the window----"
Chubikoff went up to the window, pulled the curtain to one side, and
carefully pushed the window. The window opened.
"It opens, you see! It wasn't fastened. Hm! There are tracks under the
window. Look! There is the track of a knee! Somebody got in there. We
must examine the window thoroughly."
"There is nothing special to be found on the floor," said
Dukovski.
"No stains or scratches. The only thing I found was a struck safety
match. Here it is! So far as I remember, Marcus Ivanovitch did not
smoke. And he always used sulphur matches, never safety matches.
Perhaps this safety match may serve as a clew!"
"Oh, do shut up!" cried the magistrate deprecatingly. "You go on about
your match! I can't abide these dreamers! Instead of chasing matches,
you had better examine the bed!"
After a thorough examination of the bed, Dukovski reported:
"There are no spots, either of blood or of anything else. There are
likewise no new torn places. On the pillow there are signs of teeth.
The quilt is stained with something which looks like beer and smells
like beer. The general aspect of the bed gives grounds for thinking
that a struggle took place on it."
"I know there was a struggle, without your telling me! You are not
being asked about a struggle. Instead of looking for struggles, you
had better----"
"Here is one top boot, but there is no sign of the other."
"Well, and what of that?"
"It proves that they strangled him, while he was taking his boots off.
He hadn't time to take the second boot off when----"
"There you go!--and how do you know they strangled him?"
"There are marks of teeth on the pillow. The pillow itself is badly
crumpled, and thrown a couple of yards from the bed."
"Listen to his foolishness! Better come into the garden. You would be
better employed examining the garden than digging around here. I can
do that without you!"
When they reached the garden they began by examining the grass. The
grass under the window was crushed and trampled. A bushy burdock
growing under the window close to the wall was also trampled. Dukovski
succeeded in finding on it some broken twigs and a piece of cotton
wool. On the upper branches were found some fine hairs of dark blue
wool.
"What color was his last suit?" Dukovski asked Psyekoff.
"Yellow crash."
"Excellent! You see they wore blue!"
A few twigs of the burdock were cut off, and carefully wrapped in
paper by the investigators. At this point Police Captain Artsuybasheff
Svistakovski and Dr. Tyutyeff arrived. The captain bade them "Good
day!" and immediately began to satisfy his curiosity. The doctor, a
tall, very lean man, with dull eyes, a long nose, and a pointed chin,
without greeting anyone or asking about anything, sat down on a log,
sighed, and began:
"The Servians are at war again! What in heaven's name can they want
now? Austria, it's all your doing!"
The examination of the window from the outside did not supply any
conclusive data. The examination of the grass and the bushes nearest
to the window yielded a series of useful clews. For example, Dukovski
succeeded in discovering a long, dark streak, made up of spots, on the
grass, which led some distance into the center of the garden. The
streak ended under one of the lilac bushes in a dark brown stain.
Under this same lilac bush was found a top boot, which turned out to
be the fellow of the boot already found in the bedroom.
"That is a blood stain made some time ago," said Dukovski, examining
the spot.
At the word "blood" the doctor rose, and going over lazily, looked at
the spot.
"Yes, it is blood!" he muttered.
"That shows he wasn't strangled, if there was blood," said Chubikoff,
looking sarcastically at Dukovski.
"They strangled him in the bedroom; and here, fearing he might come
round again, they struck him a blow with some sharp-pointed
instrument. The stain under the bush proves that he lay there a
considerable time, while they were looking about for some way of
carrying him out of the garden.
"Well, and how about the boot?"
"The boot confirms completely my idea that they murdered him while he
was taking his boots off before going to bed. He had already taken off
one boot, and the other, this one here, he had only had time to take
half off. The half-off boot came off of itself, while the body was
dragged over, and fell----"
"There's a lively imagination for you!" laughed Chubikoff. "He goes on
and on like that! When will you learn enough to drop your deductions?
Instead of arguing and deducing, it would be much better if you took
some of the blood-stained grass for analysis!"
When they had finished their examination, and drawn a plan of the
locality, the investigators went to the director's office to write
their report and have breakfast. While they were breakfasting they
went on talking:
"The watch, the money, and so on--all untouched--" Chubikoff began,
leading off the talk, "show as clearly as that two and two are four
that the murder was not committed for the purpose of robbery."
"The murder was committed by an educated man!" insisted Dukovski.
"What evidence have you of that?"
"The safety match proves that to me, for the peasants hereabouts are
not yet acquainted with safety matches. Only the landowners use them,
and by no means all of them. And it is evident that there was not one
murderer, but at least three. Two held him, while one killed him.
Klausoff was strong, and the murderers must have known it!"
"What good would his strength be, supposing he was asleep?"
"The murderers came on him while he was taking off his boots. If he
was taking off his boots, that proves that he wasn't asleep!"
"Stop inventing your deductions! Better eat!"
"In my opinion, your worship," said the gardener Ephraim, setting the
samovar on the table, "it was nobody but Nicholas who did this dirty
trick!"
"Quite possible," said Psyekoff.
"And who is Nicholas?"
"The master's valet, your worship," answered Ephraim. "Who else could
it be? He's a rascal, your worship! He's a drunkard and a blackguard,
the like of which Heaven should not permit! He always took the master
his vodka and put the master to bed. Who else could it be? And I also
venture to point out to your worship, he once boasted at the public
house that he would kill the master! It happened on account of
Aquilina, the woman, you know. He was making up to a soldier's widow.
She pleased the master; the master made friends with her himself, and
Nicholas--naturally, he was mad! He is rolling about drunk in the
kitchen now. He is crying, and telling lies, saying he is sorry for
the master----"
The examining magistrate ordered Nicholas to be brought. Nicholas, a
lanky young fellow, with a long, freckled nose, narrow-chested, and
wearing an old jacket of his master's, entered Psyekoff's room, and
bowed low before the magistrate. His face was sleepy and tear-stained.
He was tipsy and could hardly keep his feet.
"Where is your master?" Chubikoff asked him.
"Murdered! your worship!"
As he said this, Nicholas blinked and began to weep.
"We know he was murdered. But where is he now? Where is his body?"
"They say he was dragged out of the window and buried in the garden!"
"Hum! The results of the investigation are known in the kitchen
already!--That's bad! Where were you, my good fellow, the night the
master was murdered? Saturday night, that is."
Nicholas raised his head, stretched his neck, and began to think.
"I don't know, your worship," he said. "I was drunk and don't
remember."
"An alibi!" whispered Dukovski, smiling, and rubbing his hands.
"So-o! And why is there blood under the master's window?"
Nicholas jerked his head up and considered.
"Hurry up!" said the Captain of Police.
"Right away! That blood doesn't amount to anything, your worship! I
was cutting a chicken's throat. I was doing it quite simply, in the
usual way, when all of a sudden it broke away and started to run. That
is where the blood came from."
Ephraim declared that Nicholas did kill a chicken every evening, and
always in some new place, but that nobody ever heard of a half-killed
chicken running about the garden, though of course it wasn't
impossible.
"An alibi," sneered Dukovski; "and what an asinine alibi!"
"Did you know Aquilina?"
"Yes, your worship, I know her."
"And the master cut you out with her?"
"Not at all. _He_ cut me out--Mr. Psyekoff there, Ivan Mikhailovitch;
and the master cut Ivan Mikhailovitch out. That is how it was."
Psyekoff grew confused and began to scratch his left eye. Dukovski
looked at him attentively, noted his confusion, and started. He
noticed that the director had dark blue trousers, which he had not
observed before. The trousers reminded him of the dark blue threads
found on the burdock. Chubikoff in his turn glanced suspiciously at
Psyekoff.
"Go!" he said to Nicholas. "And now permit me to put a question to
you, Mr. Psyekoff. Of course you were here last Saturday evening?"
"Yes! I had supper with Marcus Ivanovitch about ten o'clock."
"And afterwards?"
"Afterwards--afterwards--Really, I do not remember," stammered
Psyekoff. "I had a good deal to drink at supper. I don't remember when
or where I went to sleep. Why are you all looking at me like that, as
if I was the murderer?"
"Where were you when you woke up?"
"I was in the servants' kitchen, lying behind the stove! They can all
confirm it. How I got behind the stove I don't know----"
"Do not get agitated. Did you know Aquilina?"
"There's nothing extraordinary about that----"
"She first liked you and then preferred Klausoff?"
"Yes. Ephraim, give us some more mushrooms! Do you want some more tea,
Eugraph Kuzmitch?"
A heavy, oppressive silence began and lasted fully five minutes.
Dukoyski silently kept his piercing eyes fixed on Psyekoff's pale
face. The silence was finally broken by the examining magistrate:
"We must go to the house and talk with Maria Ivanovna, the sister of
the deceased. Perhaps she may be able to supply some clews."
Chubikoff and his assistant expressed their thanks for the breakfast,
and went toward the house. They found Klausoff's sister, Maria
Ivanovna, an old maid of forty-five, at prayer before the big case of
family icons. When she saw the portfolios in her guests' hands, and
their official caps, she grew pale.
"Let me begin by apologizing for disturbing, so to speak, your
devotions," began the gallant Chubikoff, bowing and scraping. "We have
come to you with a request. Of course, you have heard already. There
is a suspicion that your dear brother, in some way or other, has been
murdered. The will of God, you know. No one can escape death, neither
czar nor plowman. Could you not help us with some clew, some
explanation----?"
"Oh, don't ask me!" said Maria Ivanovna, growing still paler, and
covering her face with her hands. "I can tell you nothing. Nothing! I
beg you! I know nothing--What can I do? Oh, no! no!--not a word about
my brother! If I die, I won't say anything!"
Maria Ivanovna began to weep, and left the room. The investigators
looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and beat a retreat.
"Confound the woman!" scolded Dukovski, going out of the house. "It is
clear she knows something, and is concealing it! And the chambermaid
has a queer expression too! Wait, you wretches! We'll ferret it all
out!"
In the evening Chubikoff and his deputy, lit on their road by the pale
moon, wended their way homeward. They sat in their carriage and
thought over the results of the day. Both were tired and kept silent.
Chubikoff was always unwilling to talk while traveling, and the
talkative Dukovski remained silent, to fall in with the elder man's
humor. But at the end of their journey the deputy could hold in no
longer, and said:
"It is quite certain," he said, "that Nicholas had something to do
with the matter. _Non dubitandum est!_ You can see by his face what
sort of a case he is! His alibi betrays him, body and bones. But it is
also certain that he did not set the thing going. He was only the
stupid hired tool. You agree? And the humble Psyekoff was not without
some slight share in the matter. His dark blue breeches, his
agitation, his lying behind the stove in terror after the murder, his
alibi and--Aquilina----"
"'Grind away, Emilian; it's your week!' So, according to you, whoever
knew Aquilina is the murderer! Hot-head! You ought to be sucking a
bottle, and not handling affairs! You were one of Aquilina's admirers
yourself--does it follow that you are implicated too?"
"Aquilina was cook in your house for a month. I am saying nothing
about that! The night before that Saturday I was playing cards with
you, and saw you, otherwise I should be after you too! It isn't the
woman that matters, old chap! It is the mean, nasty, low spirit of
jealousy that matters. The retiring young man was not pleased when
they got the better of him, you see! His vanity, don't you see? He
wanted revenge. Then, those thick lips of his suggest passion. So
there you have it: wounded self-love and passion. That is quite enough
motive for a murder. We have two of them in our hands; but who is the
third? Nicholas and Psyekoff held him, but who smothered him? Psyekoff
is shy, timid, an all-round coward. And Nicholas would not know how to
smother with a pillow. His sort use an ax or a club. Some third person
did the smothering; but who was it?"
Dukovski crammed his hat down over his eyes and pondered. He remained
silent until the carriage rolled up to the magistrate's door.
"Eureka!" he said, entering the little house and throwing off his
overcoat. "Eureka, Nicholas Yermolaïyevitch! The only thing I can't
understand is, how it did not occur to me sooner! Do you know who the
third person was?"
"Oh, for goodness sake, shut up! There is supper! Sit down to your
evening meal!"
The magistrate and Dukovski sat down to supper. Dukovski poured
himself out a glass of vodka, rose, drew himself up, and said, with
sparkling eyes:
"Well, learn that the third person, who acted in concert with that
scoundrel Psyekoff, and did the smothering, was a woman! Yes-s! I
mean--the murdered man's sister, Maria Ivanovna!"
Chubikoff choked over his vodka, and fixed his eyes on Dukovski.
"You aren't--what's-its-name? Your head isn't what-do-you-call-it? You
haven't a pain in it?"
"I am perfectly well! Very well, let us say that I am crazy; but how
do you explain her confusion when we appeared? How do you explain her
unwillingness to give us any information? Let us admit that these are
trifles. Very well! All right! But remember their relations. She
detested her brother. She never forgave him for living apart from his
wife. She is of the Old Faith, while in her eyes he is a godless
profligate. There is where the germ of her hate was hatched. They say
he succeeded in making her believe that he was an angel of Satan. He
even went in for spiritualism in her presence!"
"Well, what of that?"
"You don't understand? She, as a member of the Old Faith, murdered him
through fanaticism. It was not only that she was putting to death a
weed, a profligate--she was freeing the world of an antichrist!--and
there, in her opinion, was her service, her religious achievement! Oh,
you don't know those old maids of the Old Faith. Read Dostoyevsky! And
what does Lyeskoff say about them, or Petcherski? It was she, and
nobody else, even if you cut me open. She smothered him! O treacherous
woman! wasn't that the reason why she was kneeling before the icons,
when we came in, just to take our attention away? 'Let me kneel down
and pray,' she said to herself, 'and they will think I am tranquil and
did not expect them!' That is the plan of all novices in crime,
Nicholas Yermolaïyevitch, old pal! My dear old man, won't you intrust
this business to me? Let me personally bring it through! Friend, I
began it and I will finish it!"
Chubikoff shook his head and frowned.
"We know how to manage difficult matters ourselves," he said; "and
your business is not to push yourself in where you don't belong. Write
from dictation when you are dictated to; that is your job!"
Dukovski flared up, banged the door, and disappeared.
"Clever rascal!" muttered Chubikoff, glancing after him. "Awfully
clever! But too much of a hothead. I must buy him a cigar case at the
fair as a present."
The next day, early in the morning, a young man with a big head and a
pursed-up mouth, who came from Klausoff's place, was introduced to the
magistrate's office. He said he was the shepherd Daniel, and brought a
very interesting piece of information.
"I was a bit drunk," he said. "I was with my pal till midnight. On my
way home, as I was drunk, I went into the river for a bath. I was
taking a bath, when I looked up. Two men were walking along the dam,
carrying something black. 'Shoo!' I cried at them. They got scared,
and went off like the wind toward Makareff's cabbage garden. Strike me
dead, if they weren't carrying away the master!"
That same day, toward evening, Psyekoff and Nicholas were arrested and
brought under guard to the district town. In the town they were
committed to the cells of the prison.