She Lover of Death: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin (29 page)

Columbine sobbed and sniffed as she stroked the rough scales on her rescuer’s back.

But she stopped crying when she turned to look in the mirror and saw the crimson graze on her forehead, her swollen nose and red eyes and the blue stripes on her neck.

She ought to tidy herself up a bit before Genji got back.

III. From the ‘Agents’ Reports’ File

To His Honour Lieutenant-Colonel Besikov
(Private and confidential)

Dear Lieutenant-Colonel,

You may consider the epic story of the ‘Lovers of Death’ at an end. I shall try to set forth for you the events of this evening without omitting anything of significance.

When we all gathered at the usual time at Prospero’s apartment, I immediately realised that something quite exceptional had happened. The meeting was not chaired by Blagovolsky, but the Stammerer, and it soon became clear that our Doge had been overthrown and the reins of power had been taken up by the strong hands of a new dictator, although not for long and only in order to declare the society disbanded.

It was from the Stammerer that we learned of the quite incredible events of the previous night. I will not retell them here, because you have undoubtedly been informed about everything by your own sources. I presume that the Moscow police and your people are searching for the Stammerer in order to question him about what happened, however, I cannot help you with that. It is absolutely obvious to me that the man acted correctly, and if he does not wish to meet representatives of the law (and his words certainly gave me that impression), that is his right.

The necessity for the killing, which was committed in self-defence, was also confirmed by Columbine, who almost met her end at the hands of the insane Caliban (the aspirant to whom I have referred in previous reports as the Bookkeeper – his real name is no doubt already known to you). The poor girl’s neck, which still bore the signs of the violence done to her, was covered with a scarf, a bruise was clearly visible under a thick layer of powder on her forehead, and her voice, usually so clear, was quite hoarse from crying desperately for help.

The Stammerer began his lengthy speech by denouncing the idea of suicide, a matter in which I am entirely in agreement with him. However, with your permission, I shall not reproduce this inspired monologue, since it is of no interest to your department. I will only note that the speaker was remarkably eloquent, although he stammered more than usual.

However, the information that the Stammerer provided will probably be of some use to you. This part of his speech I shall relate at length and even in the first person, without reproducing the stammer, in order to be able to interpose my own comments from time to time.

The Stammerer began as follows, or pretty much so.

‘I live abroad for most of the time and only rarely visit Moscow, since for some time now the climate of my native city (I thought he was a Muscovite, from his accent) has not been very good for my health. But I follow events here carefully: I receive letters from friends and read the major Moscow newspapers. Reports of an epidemic of suicides and the “Lovers of Death” could not fail to attract my attention, since not too long ago I happened to deal with the case of the “Nemesis” club in London – a criminal organisation which had mastered the rare criminal speciality of driving people to commit suicide in order to profit from their deaths. It is hardly surprising that the news from Moscow made me prick up my ears. I suspected that there might be a perfectly natural and practical reason for the unusually high frequency of motiveless suicides. Was the story of the “Nemesis” club being repeated, I wondered. What if certain malevolent individuals were deliberately pushing gullible or easily influenced people to take the fatal final step?

‘Two days after I arrived in Moscow yet another versifier, Nikifor Sipyaga, took his own life. I went to examine his flat and became convinced that he had indeed been a member of the “Lovers of Death”. The police did not even bother to enquire who paid for this poor student’s quite decent accommodation. I, however, ascertained that the deceased’s flat was rented for him by a certain Sergei Irinarkhovich Blagovolsky, a man who had led an unusual and rather eccentric life. My conjecture was confirmed by observation of Mr Blagovolsky’s home: it was the place where the secret meetings were being held.

‘Having managed to become one of you without any great difficulty, I was able to continue my investigations from within the club. At first all the evidence definitely pointed to one particular individual. (The Stammerer cast an eloquent glance at Prospero, who was sitting there hunched over pitifully.) However, more thorough investigation of the string of suicides and, in particular, the most recent events – the murders of Gdlevsky and Lavr Zhemailo (yes, yes, Mr Zhemailo was also murdered), as well as the attempt on Mademoiselle Columbine’s life – have thrown a completely different light on this whole story. It is a strange story, so tangled and confused that there are many details I have still not untangled completely, but yesterday’s events served me as the sword with which to slice through this Gordian knot. The details have ceased to be important, and it will in any case not be very difficult to establish them now.

‘Lorelei Rubinstein poisoned herself with morphine after three black roses appeared in her bedroom in some mysterious fashion, one after another, and this woman obsessed with the idea of suicide took them as a summons from Death. I was able rather easily to establish that the black roses had been put in Lorelei’s room by the aunt who lived with her, an avaricious and stupid individual. She had no idea that she was doing anything wrong. She thought she was helping the latest admirer of the poetess’s talent. For performing this rather strange but, at first glance, innocent errand, the stranger paid her five roubles on each occasion, making it a condition of payment that she keep the matter secret. During my first conversation with this woman, I could see that she was frightened – she already knew what her simple assistance had led to. And when she told me that the dead roses were a single bouquet, I knew immediately that she was lying – the three flowers were at different stages of withering.

‘I went back to the woman again, with no witnesses, and made her tell me the truth. She confessed everything and gave me a very rough description of the mysterious admirer, saying that he was tall, uncouth and clean-shaven with a coarse voice. I was unable to get any more out of her – she is unintelligent, unobservant and has weak eyesight. It is clear now that it was Caliban who visited her, but at the time I still suspected Mr Blagovolsky and only realised later that my theory was wrong. If I had demonstrated a little more astuteness, the schoolboy and the reporter and, probably, Caliban himself would still be alive.’

He paused in order to rein in his feelings. One of us took advantage of the silence to ask: ‘But why did Caliban want to drive some to suicide and kill others, and in such a cruel manner?’

The Stammerer nodded, as if acknowledging the reasonableness of the question.

‘You are all aware that he was not an entirely normal individual. (I thought this remark amusing. As if all the other ‘lovers’ were normal!) However, there were circumstances in his life of which I have become aware only now, after his death. Caliban, or Savely Akimovich Papushin (that is his real name), worked as a bookkeeper on board a merchant vessel in the Volunteer Fleet. His ship was travelling on the route from Odessa to Shanghai when it was caught in a typhoon. Only three members of the crew survived and managed to reach a small deserted island in a life boat. To be precise, it was not so much an island as a series of rocky cliffs protruding from the surface of the ocean. A month and a half later a British tea clipper that happened to be in those waters discovered a single survivor – Papushin. He had not died of thirst because it was the rainy season. He did not explain how he had managed to survive for so long without food, but the remains of his two comrades were discovered on the sand: skeletons that had been gnawed absolutely clean. Papushin said that crabs had devoured the corpses. The English did not believe him and held him under lock and key until they arrived at their first port of call and then handed him over to the police authorities. (I myself have absolutely no doubt that our bookkeeper killed his two comrades and gobbled them up – it is enough to remember the bloodcurdling verse that he composed, which always included cliffs, waves and skeletons searching for their own flesh.) Papushin was held in a psychiatric clinic for more than a year. I spoke with his psychiatrist, Dr Bazhenov, today. The patient was plagued by constant nightmares and hallucinations, all connected with the subject of cannibalism. During the first week of treatment he swallowed a spoon and a shard of a broken plate, but he did not die. He did not make any further attempts at suicide, having decided that he was unworthy of death. Eventually Papushin was released on condition that he report for regular examinations and interviews with his doctor. At first he came, but then he stopped. During his final interview he seemed calmer and said that he had found people whom would help him “solve his problem”.

‘We all remember that Caliban was the most zealous advocate of voluntary death. He waited impatiently for his own turn to come and was bitterly jealous of others’ “luck”. Every time the choice fell on someone else, he fell into black despair: Death still considered him unworthy to join the comrades whom he had killed and eaten. But had he not changed, purged himself through contrition, did he not serve Death faithfully, love and desire her passionately?

‘I became a member of the club too late, and it is hard for me now to tell how or why Papushin reached his decision to push certain of the aspirants into suicide. In Ophelia’s case, he probably simply wanted to get rid of her, to put an end to the spiritualist seances – he no longer believed that the angry spirits of the “lovers” would ever summon him. Here, as in Avaddon’s case, Caliban displayed an uncommon ingenuity, of which I would never have suspected him capable. It is, however, well known that individuals of a maniacal bent can be exceptionally cunning. I will not go into the technical details here, since they have no bearing on our immediate business.

‘Why did he decide to push the Lioness of Ecstasy over the edge? Possibly she irritated him with her excessively rapturous manner. The cruel joke that Papushin played on poor Lorelei probably seemed very witty to his sick, perverted mind. I cannot suggest any other motive.

‘In Gdlevsky’s case, however, everything is quite clear. The boy boasted too much about how greatly Death favoured him. The story of the Friday rhymes is genuinely astonishing – there are too many coincidences. I suspected foul play and tried to pursue the organ grinder whose song Gdlevsky had taken as his final Sign. But the tramp seemed to have disappeared into thin air. That evening I walked round all the streets in the vicinity, but failed to find him . . .

‘Caliban’s love for Death was genuine insanity. He loved her passionately, in the way that men love
femmes fatales
. In the way that José must have loved Carmen and Rogozhin loved Nastasya Filippovna – constantly tormented by desire and consumed by desperate envy of his more fortunate rivals. And the schoolboy actually boasted about his imaginary triumph! In killing Gdlevsky, Caliban eliminated a rival. He deliberately arranged things so that you others would realise it was no suicide and the boy was a usurper, Death did not walk to the altar with him. To use the language of the newspapers, it was a genuine crime of passion.’

The mention of newspapers reminded me of Lavr Zhemailo.

‘But what happened to Cyrano?’ I asked. ‘You said it was a murder. Papushin again?’

‘Certainly, Zhemailo’s death was no suicide,’ the Stammerer replied. ‘Caliban somehow discovered who Cyrano was. A few minutes before his death the journalist phoned his newspaper’s offices (it must have been from here, it couldn’t have been anywhere else) and promised to deliver an incredible news story. I don’t know what he had in mind, but I remember the events of that evening very clearly. Cyrano went across to the bookshelves, looked at the spines of the books, and took out one volume. Then he went out and didn’t come back again. That was at about ten o’clock in the evening. The autopsy established that he died no later than eleven.’

(So that was the meaning of the mysterious movement of the door that I observed in the study that evening! While I was eavesdropping on Cyrano from the corridor, at the same time Caliban was hiding on the other side, in the dining room. That was when he had seen through the correspondent’s mask!)

‘The police surgeon,’ continued the Stammerer, ‘determined that Zhemailo died of asphyxiation, even though, in addition to the furrow left by the rope, his neck bore the clear imprints of fingers. Papushin obviously followed the journalist, overtook him on the boulevard, which was completely deserted at that late hour, and strangled him, which would not be difficult, since nature had endowed the killer with such great strength. Short, flabby Cyrano could not possibly have offered any serious resistance to the enraged bookkeeper. Afterwards Caliban hung the body on a tree, using the victim’s trouser belt. This was no crime of passion but an act of revenge. Caliban regarded membership of the club as a sacred ministry, Cyrano was a villainous traitor. That was why he hung him on a Judas tree, an aspen.’

(At this point, to be quite honest, I broke into a cold sweat. I imagined what the madman would have done to me if he had found out about my correspondence with you. Do you at least understand the monstrous risk to which I exposed myself in carrying out your assignment?

My heart started pounding, my fingers started trembling and after that I listened less attentively, and so I will convey the conclusion of the speech in somewhat abbreviated form.)

‘The fact that he had got away with the two previous murders and his ever-increasing resentment drove Papushin into attempting yet another crime. He decided to kill Columbine, Death’s new favourite. The madman must have found it particularly hard to bear the humiliation he had suffered when his cherished message from the Eternal Bride was publicly declared a forgery. And Columbine had already stated that fire did not touch
her
Signs.