The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations

J >> Julian Hawthorne >> The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations

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"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.
Dukovski 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! Hothead! 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 Yermolaiyevitch! 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
Yermolaiyevitch, 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.

II

A fortnight passed.

It was morning. The magistrate Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch was
sitting in his office before a green table, turning over the papers
of the "Klausoff case"; Dukovski was striding restlessly up and
down, like a wolf in a cage.

"You are convinced of the guilt of Nicholas and Psyekoff," he said,
nervously plucking at his young beard. "Why will you not believe
in the guilt of Maria Ivanovna? Are there not proofs enough for
you?"

"I don't say I am not convinced. I am convinced, but somehow I
don't believe it! There are no real proofs, but just a kind of
philosophizing--fanaticism, this and that--"

"You can't do without an ax and bloodstained sheets. Those
jurists! Very well, I'll prove it to you! You will stop sneering
at the psychological side of the affair! To Siberia with your
Maria Ivanovna! I will prove it! If philosophy is not enough for
you, I have something substantial for you. It will show you how
correct my philosophy is. Just give me permission--"

"What are you going on about?"

"About the safety match! Have you forgotten it? I haven't! I am
going to find out who struck it in the murdered man's room. It was
not Nicholas that struck it; it was not Psyekoff, for neither of
them had any matches when they were examined; it was the third
person, Maria Ivanovna. I will prove it to you. Just give me
permission to go through the district to find out."

"That's enough! Sit down. Let us go on with the examination."

Dukovski sat down at a little table, and plunged his long nose in a
bundle of papers.

"Bring in Nicholas Tetekhoff!" cried the examining magistrate.

They brought Nicholas in. Nicholas was pale and thin as a rail.
He was trembling.

"Tetekhoff!" began Chubikoff. "In 1879 you were tried in the Court
of the First Division, convicted of theft, and sentenced to
imprisonment. In 1882 you were tried a second time for theft, and
were again imprisoned. We know all--"

Astonishment was depicted on Nicholas's face. The examining
magistrate's omniscience startled him. But soon his expression of
astonishment changed to extreme indignation. He began to cry and
requested permission to go and wash his face and quiet down. They
led him away.

"Brink in Psyekoff!" ordered the examining magistrate. They
brought in Psyekoff. The young man had changed greatly during the
last few days. He had grown thin and pale, and looked haggard.
His eyes had an apathetic expression.

"Sit down, Psyekoff," said Chubikoff. "I hope that today you are
going to be reasonable, and will not tell lies, as you did before.
All these days you have denied that you had anything to do with the
murder of Klausoff, in spite of all the proofs that testify against
you. That is foolish. Confession will lighten your guilt. This
is the last time I am going to talk to you. If you do not confess
to-day, to-morrow it will be too late. Come, tell me all--"

"I know nothing about it. I know nothing about your proofs,"
answered Psyekoff, almost inaudibly.

"It's no use! Well, let me relate to you how the matter took
place. On Saturday evening you were sitting in Klausoff's sleeping
room, and drinking vodka and beer with him." (Dukovski fixed his
eyes on Psyekoff's face, and kept them there all through the
examination.) "Nicholas was waiting on you. At one o'clock,
Marcus Ivanovitch announced his intention of going to bed. He
always went to bed at one o'clock. When he was taking off his
boots, and was giving you directions about details of management,
you and Nicholas, at a given signal, seized your drunken master and
threw him on the bed. One of you sat on his legs, the other on his
head. Then a third person came in from the passage--a woman in a
black dress, whom you know well, and who had previously arranged
with you as to her share in your criminal deed. She seized a
pillow and began to smother him. While the struggle was going on
the candle went out. The woman took a box of safety matches from
her pocket, and lit the candle. Was it not so? I see by your face
that I am speaking the truth. But to go on. After you had
smothered him, and saw that he had ceased breathing, you and
Nicholas pulled him out through the window and laid him down near
the burdock. Fearing that he might come round again, you struck
him with something sharp. Then you carried him away, and laid him
down under a lilac bush for a short time. After resting awhile and
considering, you carried him across the fence. Then you entered
the road. After that comes the dam. Near the dam, a peasant
frightened you. Well, what is the matter with you?"

"I am suffocating!" replied Psyekoff. "Very well--have it so.
Only let me go out, please!"

They led Psyekoff away.

"At last! He has confessed!" cried Chubikoff, stretching himself
luxuriously. "He has betrayed himself! And didn't I get round him
cleverly! Regularly caught him flapping--"

"And he doesn't deny the woman in the black dress!" exulted
Dukovski. "But all the same, that safety match is tormenting me
frightfully. I can't stand it any longer. Good-by! I am off!"

Dukovski put on his cap and drove off. Chubikoff began to examine
Aquilina. Aquilina declared that she knew nothing whatever about
it.

At six that evening Dukovski returned. He was more agitated than
he had ever been before. His hands trembled so that he could not
even unbutton his greatcoat. His cheeks glowed. It was clear that
he did not come empty-handed.

"Veni, vidi, vici!" he cried, rushing into Chubikoff's room, and
falling into an armchair. "I swear to you on my honor, I begin to
believe that I am a genius! Listen, devil take us all! It is
funny, and it is sad. We have caught three already--isn't that so?
Well, I have found the fourth, and a woman at that. You will never
believe who it is! But listen. I went to Klausoff's village, and
began to make a spiral round it. I visited all the little shops,
public houses, dram shops on the road, everywhere asking for safety
matches. Everywhere they said they hadn't any. I made a wide
round. Twenty times I lost faith, and twenty times I got it back
again. I knocked about the whole day, and only an hour ago I got
on the track. Three versts from here. They gave me a packet of
ten boxes. One box was missing. Immediately: 'Who bought the
other box?' 'Such-a-one! She was pleased with them!' Old man!
Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch! See what a fellow who was expelled from
the seminary and who has read Gaboriau can do! From to-day on I
begin to respect myself! Oof! Well, come!"

"Come where?"

"To her, to number four! We must hurry, otherwise--otherwise I'll
burst with impatience! Do you know who she is? You'll never
guess! Olga Petrovna, Marcus Ivanovitch's wife--his own wife--
that's who it is! She is the person who bought the matchbox!"

"You--you--you are out of your mind!"

"It's quite simple! To begin with, she smokes. Secondly, she was
head and ears in love with Klausoff, even after he refused to live
in the same house with her, because she was always scolding his
head off. Why, they say she used to beat him because she loved him
so much. And then he positively refused to stay in the same house.
Love turned sour. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.' But
come along! Quick, or it will be dark. Come!"

"I am not yet sufficiently crazy to go and disturb a respectable
honorable woman in the middle of the night for a crazy boy!"

"Respectable, honorable! Do honorable women murder their husbands?
After that you are a rag, and not an examining magistrate! I never
ventured to call you names before, but now you compel me to. Rag!
Dressing-gown!--Dear Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch, do come, I beg of
you--!"

The magistrate made a deprecating motion with his hand.

"I beg of you! I ask, not for myself, but in the interests of
justice. I beg you! I implore you! Do what I ask you to, just
this once!"

Dukovski went down on his knees.

"Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch! Be kind! Call me a blackguard, a
ne'er-do-weel, if I am mistaken about this woman. You see what an
affair it is. What a case it is. A romance! A woman murdering
her own husband for love! The fame of it will go all over Russia.
They will make you investigator in all important cases.
Understand, O foolish old man!"

The magistrate frowned, and undecidedly stretched his hand toward
his cap.

"Oh, the devil take you!" he said. "Let us go!"

It was dark when the magistrate's carriage rolled up to the porch
of the old country house in which Olga Petrovna had taken refuge
with her brother.

"What pigs we are," said Chubikoff, taking hold of the bell, "to
disturb a poor woman like this!"

"It's all right! It's all right! Don't get frightened! We can
say that we have broken a spring."

Chubikoff and Dukovski were met at the threshold by a tall buxom
woman of three and twenty, with pitch-black brows and juicy red
lips. It was Olga Petrovna herself, apparently not the least
distressed by the recent tragedy.

"Oh, what a pleasant surprise!" she said, smiling broadly. "You
are just in time for supper. Kuzma Petrovitch is not at home. He
is visiting the priest, and has stayed late. But we'll get on
without him! Be seated. You have come from the examination?"

"Yes. We broke a spring, you know," began Chubikoff, entering the
sitting room and sinking into an armchair.

"Take her unawares--at once!" whispered Dukovski; "take her
unawares!"

"A spring--hum--yes--so we came in."

"Take her unawares, I tell you! She will guess what the matter is
if you drag things out like that."

"Well, do it yourself as you want. But let me get out of it,"
muttered Chubikoff, rising and going to the window.

"Yes, a spring," began Dukovski, going close to Olga Petrovna and
wrinkling his long nose. "We did not drive over here--to take
supper with you or--to see Kuzma Petrovitch. We came here to ask
you, respected madam, where Marcus Ivanovitch is, whom you
murdered!"

"What? Marcus Ivanovitch murdered?" stammered Olga Petrovna, and
her broad face suddenly and instantaneously flushed bright scarlet.
"I don't--understand!"

"I ask you in the name of the law! Where is Klausoff? We know
all!"

"Who told you?" Olga Petrovna asked in a low voice, unable to
endure Dukovski's glance.

"Be so good as to show us where he is!"

"But how did you find out? Who told you?"

"We know all! I demand it in the name of the law!"

The examining magistrate, emboldened by her confusion, came forward
and said:

"Show us, and we will go away. Otherwise, we--"

"What do you want with him?"

"Madam, what is the use of these questions? We ask you to show us!
You tremble, you are agitated. Yes, he has been murdered, and, if
you must have it, murdered by you! Your accomplices have betrayed
you!"

Olga Petrovna grew pale.

"Come!" she said in a low voice, wringing her hands. "I have him--
hid--in the bath house! Only for heaven's sake, do not tell Kuzma
Petrovitch. I beg and implore you! He will never forgive me!"

Olga Petrovna took down a big key from the wall, and led her guests
through the kitchen and passage to the courtyard. The courtyard
was in darkness. Fine rain was falling. Olga Petrovna walked in
advance of them. Chubikoff and Dukovski strode behind her through
the long grass, as the odor of wild hemp and dishwater splashing
under their feet reached them. The courtyard was wide. Soon the
dishwater ceased, and they felt freshly broken earth under their
feet. In the darkness appeared the shadowy outlines of trees, and
among the trees a little house with a crooked chimney.

"That is the bath house," said Olga Petrovna. "But I implore you,
do not tell my brother! If you do, I'll never hear the end of it!"

Going up to the bath house, Chubikoff and Dukovski saw a huge
padlock on the door.

"Get your candle and matches ready," whispered the examining
magistrate to his deputy.

Olga Petrovna unfastened the padlock, and let her guests into the
bath house. Dukovski struck a match and lit up the anteroom. In
the middle of the anteroom stood a table. On the table, beside a
sturdy little samovar, stood a soup tureen with cold cabbage soup
and a plate with the remnants of some sauce.

"Forward!"

They went into the next room, where the bath was. There was a
table there also. On the table was a dish with some ham, a bottle
of vodka, plates, knives, forks.

"But where is it--where is the murdered man?" asked the examining
magistrate.

"On the top tier," whispered Olga Petrovna, still pale and
trembling.

Dukovski took the candle in his hand and climbed up to the top tier
of the sweating frame. There he saw a long human body lying
motionless on a large feather bed. A slight snore came from the
body.

"You are making fun of us, devil take it!" cried Dukovski. "That
is not the murdered man! Some live fool is lying here. Here,
whoever you are, the devil take you!"

The body drew in a quick breath and stirred. Dukovski stuck his
elbow into it. It raised a hand, stretched itself, and lifted its
head.

"Who is sneaking in here?" asked a hoarse, heavy bass. "What do
you want?"

Dukovski raised the candle to the face of the unknown, and cried
out. In the red nose, disheveled, unkempt hair, the pitch-black
mustaches, one of which was jauntily twisted and pointed insolently
toward the ceiling, he recognized the gallant cavalryman Klausoff.

"You--Marcus--Ivanovitch? Is it possible?"

The examining magistrate glanced sharply up at him, and stood
spellbound.

"Yes, it is I. That's you, Dukovski? What the devil do you want
here? And who's that other mug down there? Great snakes! It is
the examining magistrate! What fate has brought him here?"

Klausoff rushed down and threw his arms round Chubikoff in a
cordial embrace. Olga Petrovna slipped through the door.

"How did you come here? Let's have a drink, devil take it! Tra-
ta-ti-to-tum--let us drink! But who brought you here? How did you
find out that I was here? But it doesn't matter! Let's have a
drink!"

Klausoff lit the lamp and poured out three glasses of vodka.

"That is--I don't understand you," said the examining magistrate,
running his hands over him. "Is this you or not you!"

"Oh, shut up! You want to preach me a sermon? Don't trouble
yourself! Young Dukovski, empty your glass! Friends, let us bring
this--What are you looking at? Drink!"

"All the same, I do not understand!" said the examining magistrate,
mechanically drinking off the vodka. "What are you here for?"

"Why shouldn't I be here, if I am all right here?"

Klausoff drained his glass and took a bite of ham.

"I am in captivity here, as you see. In solitude, in a cavern,
like a ghost or a bogey. Drink! She carried me off and locked me
up, and--well, I am living here, in the deserted bath house, like a
hermit. I am fed. Next week I think I'll try to get out. I'm
tired of it here!"

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