Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog (28 page)

“Matvei Bentsionovich, you have come? Decided to deal with it yourself? Well, that’s right.”

He bowed as he shook Berdichevsky’s hand and glanced in bewilderment at Pelagia, but was completely satisfied by Matvei Bentsionovich’s explanation and thereafter paid not the slightest attention to the nun. Felix Stanislavovich was clearly in a quite excellent mood.

“Not much to see here,” he said, gesturing dismissively at the havoc in the salon. “But come upstairs. That’s where the real scene is.”

There were only two rooms upstairs—the bedroom and one other, in which, as we have already mentioned, Arkadii Sergeevich had set up his photographic laboratory. They glanced into this room first, since it was the first one they came to.

“Take a look at that,” Lagrange declared haughtily as he showed it to them. “Everything totally shattered.”

And, indeed, the laboratory looked even more terrible than the salon. The Kodak camera was lying in the middle of the room, either smashed by a crushing blow or trampled flat, and scattered around it were the glittering icicle fragments of photographic plates.

“Not one left intact; they’re all smashed to smithereens,” the police chief explained as cheerfully as ever, as if he were boasting about the unknown criminal’s talents.

“Any clues?” inquired Berdichevsky with a glance at the two police officers crawling across the floor, clutching magnifying glasses in their hands.

“What clues could there be here?” replied the one who was slightly older, raising a crumpled face haggard from drink. “You can see for yourself, it’s like a herd of elephants has run through here. We’re just wasting our time on nonsense, assembling the fragments. At the bottom of every plate there’s a paper label with the title—‘The White Arbor,’ ‘Sunset over the River,’ ‘The Mermaid.’ We’re putting them together from corner to corner, like doing a children’s jigsaw. Maybe we’ll turn up something useful. But, of course, that’s not very likely.”

“I see.” Speaking in a low voice, Berdichevsky asked Lagrange: “And where is…the body?”

“Come this way,” said Felix Stanislavovich with a laugh. “You won’t be able to sleep tonight after this. It’s quite a still-life.”

Matvei Bentsionovich wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and followed his blue-jacketed Virgil along the corridor. Pelagia walked softly behind.

Poggio was lying on the bed, staring solemnly up at the ceiling as if he were pondering something very significant; in any case, certainly not the tripod that had pinned him to the bed and remained stuck there, protruding from his ribcage.

“Killed immediately, of course,” said the police chief, pointing with a white-gloved finger. “Please note that the blow was struck from directly above. And so the victim must have been lying down; he didn’t even attempt to get up. Obviously he was asleep. He opened his eyes, and at that very moment—off to his eternal reward. And the killer started wrecking and smashing everything afterward.”

Matvei Bentsionovich forced himself to look at the three tightly bunched wooden legs thrust deep into the dead man’s body. Their lower sections were bound in brass, no doubt with sharp points.

“A powerful blow,” he said, pretending to be unruffled, and tried to clasp his fingers around the top of the tripod. He could not—his fingers did not reach around it. “A woman could not have done that. It’s too heavy, and she couldn’t get a proper grip.”

“Yes, I agree,” said Lagrange. “Which means that it’s not Princess Telianova. Basically, this case is about as complicated as a boiled turnip. I was just waiting for the inspector, and my men have carried out a complete search. Do you think you could sign the report?”

Berdichevsky frowned at such a flagrant breach of procedure—the report of the search ought to have been drawn up in the presence of the prosecutor’s representative, and therefore he set about reading the document with deliberate slowness.

“Any ideas?” Matvei Bentsionovich asked.

“Why don’t we go downstairs to the salon, while they’re clearing all this away,” Felix Stanislavovich suggested.

And so they did.

They stood in the corner of the empty salon. The chief of police lit his pipe and Matvei Bentsionovich took out a little notebook. Sister Pelagia positioned herself nearby: She crawled across the floor as if picking up rubbish, but in actual fact she was gathering fragments of pictures and matching them up with one another. The men talked without paying any attention to her.

“Go ahead,” said Berdichevsky, ready to start taking notes.

“The number of people involved in the case is small. The number of those who might have had some motive for murder is even smaller. We need to establish which member of the last group has no alibi, and the case is closed.”

Lagrange was quite magnificent now; his eyes glowed like fire, the ends of his mustache quivered triumphantly, his hand sawed the air vigorously, he rolled specialized terms around his tongue as if they were sugarplums. One imagines that during the preceding weeks Felix Stanislavovich had changed his mind about Zavolzhie being boring and lacking in prospects. Why, just take the Zyt case, if nothing else! But there all the plaudits and public acclaim had clearly gone to Bubentsov, while here, in the investigation of this most appetizing murder, no one else could cut across the police chief’s bows. And then again, it was an opportunity to demonstrate his own indispensability to the crafty and dangerous Mr. Berdichevsky, for indispensability was currently under a dark cloud of doubt in connection with Felix Stanislavovich’s blunder with the bribe.

“Judge for yourself, Matvei Bentsionovich,” said Lagrange, brushing a little feather off the assistant prosecutor’s sleeve. “The link between the murder in the night and the scandal of the previous evening is clear, is it not?”

“That would seem to be the case.”

“There were ten people at Olympiada Savelievna’s soirée, not counting the ladies. We shall omit the synodical inspector and the marshal of the nobility, because they are quality, and in any case there is no indication of any motive. In addition, those invited by the deceased included: the estate manager Shiryaev, Prince Telianov, and merchant of the first guild Krasnov. The hostess’s own guests included the headmaster of the grammar school, Sonin, the barrister Kleist, and the architect Brandt. And Vladimir Lvovich also brought his secretary, Spasyonny.”

“That would seem to be the case,” repeated Berdichevsky, scribbling away rapidly with his pencil. “And, of course, in the first instance you suspect Shiryaev and in the second Telianov?”

“Not so fast,” said Felix Stanislavovich with a rapturous smile. “At this stage of initial approximation I am not inclined to narrow the circle of suspects too far. Take the ladies, for instance. Princess Telianova was the main target of yesterday’s scandal. If she did not kill him herself, she could be the mastermind or an accomplice, and I shall have more to say about that. Now for Mrs. Lisitsyna.”

Pelagia froze, with the photograph of the nude on the sand still not completely assembled.

“A very unusual lady. It’s not clear what exactly she has been doing in Zavolzhsk for all this time. I made inquiries, and apparently she came to visit her sister, a nun. Then why is she making the rounds of all the balls and the salons? She gets everywhere; everybody knows her. She’s lively and flirtatious, and she turns men’s heads. All the signs suggest that she’s an adventuress.”

Berdichevsky squinted sideways at Pelagia in embarrassment, but she did not seem to be listening any longer; she was fiddling intently with her scraps of paper.

“Today I inquired by telegraph whether Polina Andreevna Lisitsyna had figured in any other cases. And what do you think? She had, in three of them! Three years ago in Perm, in the case of the murder of the ascetic monk Pafnutii. Last year in Kazan, in the case of the theft of a miraculous icon, and again in Samara, in the case of the sinking of the steamer
Svyatogor.
In all three cases she testified as a witness at the trials. How do you like that?”

Berdichevsky gave the nun another glance, not embarrassed this time, but quizzical.

“Yes, that is curious,” he admitted. “But we have already established that a woman could not have committed this murder.”

“Even so, this Lisitsyna is damned suspicious. But never mind her, we’ll sort that out later. And now let us move on to the prime suspects, meaning those who have known Poggio for a long time and had, or could have had, reasons for killing him.” Lagrange extended his index finger. “Number one, of course, is Shiryaev. He is insanely in love with Telianova and tried to kill Poggio right there at the opening. They barely managed to pull him off. Number two is the princess’s brother, Pyotr Telianov.” The chief of police extended his middle finger as well. “Here the matter of wounded vanity could also well play a part. Telianov was the last one there to realize that his sister had been insulted, and that made him look like either a fool or a coward. An unstable young man of unsavory character. He is under open surveillance, and I regard these nihilist types as capable of any kind of abomination. When someone has raised his hand against the foundations of the state, what can one man’s life mean to him? But in this case it is even excusable in a certain sense—he was standing up for his sister. But that is still not all.” His ring finger, still half-bent, was added to the other two. “Sytnikov. A secretive gentleman, but also not without his passions. According to my information, by no means indifferent to Telianova’s charms. So there’s your motive—envy of a more successful rival. Donat Abramovich would not go skulking around at night like a bandit himself, but he could well have sent one of his fine young fellows. All of his employees are Old Believers to a man. Morose types with long beards who regard the authorities with hostility.” Felix Stanislavovich seemed to find the idea that the murderers were Old Believers to his liking. “Why not, it would certainly be easy enough. I’d better inform Vladimir Lvovich…”

“And by the way, about Vladimir Lvovich,” Berdichevsky remarked with an innocent air. “Not everything is clear there, either. They say that Telianova didn’t simply drop Poggio, she dropped him for Bubentsov.”

“Rubbish,” said the police chief, waving the hand with the extended fingers dismissively. “Women’s tittle-tattle. Telianova, of course, might well be pining for Vladimir Lvovich. Nothing surprising in that—he’s a most exceptional man. But Vladimir Lvovich is absolutely indifferent to her. And even if there had been something between them before, where’s the motive? Jealousy for a lover you don’t care for and don’t know how to get rid of? Murder somebody because of that? That sort of thing doesn’t happen, Matvei Bentsionovich.”

He had to admit that Lagrange was right.

“Then what are we going to do?” asked Berdichevsky.

“I think that for a start it would be a good idea to question all three of them….”

The chief of police did not finish what he was saying—he had noticed the nun standing to one side not far away. Scraps of photographs, neatly assembled into rectangles, lay on the floor along the walls.

“Why are you still nosing around?” Felix Stanislavovich exclaimed irritably. “Finish tidying up and get out. Or even better, sweep all this litter out of here.”

Pelagia bowed without speaking and walked upstairs to the second floor.

The police officers who had carried out the search were sitting in the laboratory, smoking cigarettes.

“What do you want, little sister?” the one she already knew, with the crumpled face, asked in a jolly voice. “Forget something?”

The nun saw that there were no more fragments of glass lying on the floor—they had all been collected and laid out, just like the photographs in the salon. Following the direction of her gaze, the jolly fellow said: “There’s some there as wouldn’t be recommended for your eyes. He was quite an interesting gentleman, was our Poggio. A shame; no way to restore anything now.”

Pelagia asked: “Tell me, sir, is there a plate here with the title ‘Rainy Morning’?”

The detective stopped smiling and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Strange you should ask that, sister. There’s a ‘Rainy Morning’ here in the list, but we didn’t find any plate. Not a scrap. He must have been unhappy with it and decided to throw it out. And what do you know about it?”

Pelagia said nothing, knitting her ginger brows in a frown. She was thinking.

“So what about this ‘Rainy Morning’ then?” the detective with the crumbled face persisted.

“Do not distract me, my son, I am praying,” the nun replied absentmindedly, and then she turned and went back downstairs.

The whole point was that the photograph with that title was also missing from the salon. All the pictures assembled from fragments corresponded to the titles remaining on the walls—even the three of the unknown nude that had provoked the scandal. But she had not discovered a single fragment, even the tiniest, of “Rainy Morning.”

“…But still, Bubentsov should also be questioned!” she heard as she entered the salon.

Matvei Bentsionovich and Felix Stanislavovich were apparently unable to agree on the list of suspects.

“You can’t insult a man like that by suspecting him! Think again, Mr. Berdichevsky! Of course, I am entirely in your power, but…Well, now what do you want?” the chief of police barked at Pelagia.

“We should gather everyone who was here yesterday and all pray together for the soul of the recently departed servant of God,” she said, glancing meekly at him with her radiant brown eyes. “Who knows; perhaps the monster might repent?”