A Night in the Cemetery

THE SWEDISH MATCH

PART ONE

On the morning of October 6, 19__, a well-dressed young man came into the office of the Second Police Precinct of the City of S. He made a statement to the effect that his master, a retired officer, Mark Ivanovich Banks, had been murdered.

The young man was very excited while he was making his deposition. His hands were trembling, and his eyes were glazed with horror.

“To whom do I have the honor of speaking?” the chief of police asked.

“I am Mr. Post, Banks’s manager. Horticulturist and mechanic.”

The chief of police and two witnesses, who arrived at the scene of the murder together with Mr. Post, discovered the following: a crowd of people was standing next to the house where Banks was killed. News of the murder had dispersed instantaneously across the neighborhood, and because it was the weekend, people from all the neighboring farms and villages had come to have a look. People in the crowd were talking noisily. There were several pale and crying faces. The door to Banks’s bedroom was found to be closed. The key was stuck in the lock from the inside.

“It is obvious that the thieves came into the room through the window,” said Post, when he examined the door.

They went into the garden to have a look at the bedroom window. The window looked gloomy and sinister. It was covered with a faded green curtain. One corner of the curtain was folded back a little, so they could look inside the bedroom.

“Did any one of you look through the window?” asked the police chief.

“No, sir,” said the gardener Efrem, a short, gray-haired man with the face of a retired drill sergeant. “How could we? It is none of our business, sir! We were all afraid.”

“Oh, Mark Ivanovich, Mark Ivanovich!” The police chief sighed as he looked at the window. “I told you that you would finish badly. I told you, my dear, but you did not listen to me. Dissipation is no good.”

“We have to thank Efrem,” said Mr. Post. “He gave us the idea. Without him, we would never have realized it. He was the first to notice that something was wrong around here. This morning, he came to me and said, ‘Why has our landlord been asleep for so long? He has not left his bedroom for this whole week.’ He told me this, and I became dumb as if someone had struck me on my head. It dawned upon me that he had not appeared since last Saturday, and today is Sunday. Seven days, I am not kidding!”

“Yes, poor man.” The police chief sighed again. “He was a clever young man, well educated and kind, with good manners. He was such good company, too! But he was a dissipated man, let him rest in peace! I had expected so much more from him. Hey, Stepan,” he said, addressing one of the witnesses. “Go to my office right now, and send little Andrew to the police precinct. Tell him to file a report! Tell them all that Mark Ivanovich has been murdered. And then go to the prosecutor’s office, tell the man, Why is it taking him so long? He should be here already! And then, as soon as possible, you can go to the detective Nikolai Ermolaevich, and tell him to come here. Wait, I’ll write him a note.”

The police chief put guards around the house, wrote a brief note to the detective, and went to the manager of the estate to have a cup of tea. For the next ten minutes he sat on a stool, carefully biting a lump of sugar and sipping the boiling hot tea.

“Yes,” he said to Post. “There you are. Rich and famous, a really well-off young man. ‘A man loved by the gods,’ as the poet Pushkin used to say. And what happened to him? Nothing! All he did was drinking and womanizing … and, as a result, he is dead.”

“Two hours later, the detective arrived. Nikolai Ermolaevich Rusty (this is the detective’s name) was a tall, strongly built man of about sixty years; he had worked in his profession for nearly a quarter of a century. He was well-known in the local county as an honest, clever and energetic man who loved his work. He arrived at the scene of the crime with his constant companion and assistant, the junior officer Dukovsky, a tall young man of about twenty-six years old.

“Is it true, gentlemen?” started Mr. Rusty, as he entered the Post’s room and hastily shook hands with all of them. “How is it possible? They killed Mark Ivanovich? No, I can’t believe this! It’s im-pos-si-ble!”

“Well, that’s about it.” The police chief sighed.

“Oh my God! I saw him a week ago. Last Friday, I saw him at the local country market. I have to admit, I had a shot of vodka with him!”

“So there you are.” The police chief heaved another deep sigh.

They sighed a few more times, said the few words which people usually say in such cases. Each had a cup of tea, and then they stepped out of the manager’s house.

“Make way!” the police sergeant cried into the crowd. When they entered the landlord’s house, the detective started his investigation from the bedroom door. It was made of pine, painted yellow, and it was not damaged. There were no signs or outstanding marks which could assist the investigation. They decided to break in.

“Gentlemen, please stay outside. Those of you who are not officers, please do not enter!” said the detective, when, after a long period of knocking and cracking the door was opened by dint of axe and chisel. “Please do not enter—this is in the interests of the investigation. Sergeant, don’t let anyone in!”

Rusty, his assistant, and the police chief opened the door and finally entered the bedroom, walking in an undecided manner, one step at a time. There they saw the following. A huge wooden bed with a thick feather mattress stood in front of the only window. A wrinkled blanket lay on the wrinkled mattress. The pillow, in a nice cotton pillowcase, also very wrinkled, lay on the floor. A nickel coin and a silver pocket watch lay on the bedside table. There was a box of sulfur matches next to them. There was no other furniture—only the bed, the table, and one chair. The sergeant looked under the bed and saw about twenty empty liquor bottles, an old straw hat, and a quart of vodka there. There was a boot covered with dust under the table. The detective cast a glance at the room, frowned, and then blushed.

“Scoundrels,” he mumbled, pressing his fists together.

“And where is Mark Ivanovich?” asked Dukovsky quietly.

“I told you not to interfere!” Rusty responded rudely. “You’d better study the floor. This looks like another case in my practice. Evgraf Koozmich,” he addressed the sergeant in a lower voice, “I had a similar case, it was about twenty years ago, you should remember. The murder of merchant Portraitov. The same thing: the scoundrels killed him and dragged the dead body through the window.”

Rusty went to the window, pulled the curtain aside, and carefully lifted the windowpane. It opened.

“It opens. This means it was not locked. Hmm. There are some scratches and traces on the windowsill. Do you see them? Here, a trace from somebody’s knee. Someone came from the outside. We should make a detailed examination of the window.”

“I don’t see anything special on the floor though,” Dukovsky said. “No spots, or scratches. I found only one bruised Swedish match. Here it is! As far as I remember, Mark Ivanovich did not smoke and as a rule, he used safety sulfur matches, not the Swedish ones. This match could be material evidence.”

“Oh, shut up please!” the detective shook his head. “You and your matches! I can’t put up with these clever fellows. Instead of looking for matches, you’d be better off to examine the bed.”

After the examination of the bed, Dukovsky reported:

“I found no blood, or any other suspicious spots. No torn linen either. I saw the signs of somebody’s teeth on the pillow. Besides this, on the bed, I found the remains of a strange liquid, which smells and tastes like beer. The arrangement of the objects on the bed suggests to me that some struggle was going on there.”

“I know without you that there was a struggle! Nobody is asking you about a struggle! Instead of looking for a struggle, you’d better …”

“One boot is here, the other one is missing.”

“Yes, and what?”

“This means that he was strangled when he was taking off his boots. He did not have enough time to take off his second boot, but they …”

“What are you talking about? How do you know that they strangled him?”

“Because there are traces of teeth on the pillow. The pillow itself is very scrambled and thrown two steps away from the bed.”

“You talk too much, you’re like a chatterbox! Go to the garden. You should have a good look at the garden instead of staying here, and I can examine the room better than you.”

When the investigators came into the garden, they searched the grass. The grass under the window was flattened. A patch of thistles under the window was smashed. Dukovsky found several broken branches and a piece of cotton cloth on them. On one of the upturned heads of the flowers, he found a dark-blue woolen thread.

“What color were the clothes he was last seen wearing?” Dukovsky asked Post.

“Yellow.”

“Excellent. This means that they wore blue.”

Several of these thistle blossoms were cut, and carefully wrapped in paper. At that moment, two more people arrived at the scene: the court officer Svistakovsky and the doctor Tutuev. The court officer greeted them, and at the same time started to satisfy his curiosity. The doctor, a gaunt and slim man with fallen eyes, a long nose, and a sharp chin, sat on the stump of the nearby tree, greeting none and asking nothing. He sighed and said,

“And the Austrians are excited again! I don’t understand, what do they want? Well, Austria, again Austria! This is the sphere of your political influence. I hold you responsible for this tension, for this state of affairs …”

The examination of the window brought no results. But the examination of the garden and the bush next to the window gave many useful clues to the detectives. For example, Dukovsky managed to trace a long dark line on the grass. It consisted of a series of spots, and stretched for several steps in the garden. The line ended at the lilac bush with a big brown spot. It was where they found a boot, which matched the one in the bedroom.

“This is old blood,” said Dukovsky, examining the spots.

The doctor, when he heard the word “blood,” stood up lazily, and cast a fast sliding glance at the spots.

“Yes, this is blood.”

“This means that he was not strangled, if it’s blood,” said Rusty, looking mockingly at Dukovsky.

“They strangled him in the bedroom, and here they became afraid that he might come back to life. Therefore, they hit him here with a sharp object. The blood spot under the bush indicates that he was there for a rather long time, while they were looking for means to remove his body from the garden.”

“And what about the boot?”

“It supports my version that he was killed when he was taking off his boots before going to bed. He took off one boot, but the other one, I mean the one in the garden, had only been partially removed. Then it fell off his foot while they dragged the body across the garden.”

“You are smart, I can see that,” Rusty smiled. “You are very clever! And when are you going to stop talking? Instead of talking so much, you should take a sample of the blood-stained grass for analysis.”

After they made a sketch of the garden, the detective went to the estate manager to write a report and to have breakfast. There, they continued their conversation.

“The watch and the money—everything is intact,” Rusty began. “He was apparently not killed for money.”

“And he was killed by an intelligent man too,” inserted Dukovsky.

“How did you come to this conclusion?”

“I have a Swedish match as proof of this. Local farmers don’t use these matches. They are used by the local landlords, and even then, not by everyone. And there was not just one killer, but at least three of them. Two people held him, and the third strangled him. Mr. Banks was a strong man, and the killers should have known this.”

“How could he use his force, if, for example, he was asleep?”

“The killers got him when he was taking off his boots. This means that he was not asleep.”

“Don’t imagine things! Eat your breakfast!”

“It is my understanding,” said the gardener Efrem, when he put the big teapot on the table, “that this dirty deed was done by Nicholas, and none else.”

“It is quite possible,” said Post. “And who is Nicholas?”

“He is the landlord’s butler, your honor,” said Efrem. “Who else but he could do this? He looks like a real robber, your honor! He is so drunk and dissipated that all are disgusted! He always supplied the landlord with vodka, and put him to bed. Who else? And one day, he even boasted in the pub that he could kill his landlord, your honor. This all happened because of the woman named Annie. Her husband is away all the time, making money, and she was the butler’s girlfriend for a while. The landlord noticed her, he liked her, and he paid attention to her. So, Nicholas was very mad about all this. Now he is completely drunk, lying on the kitchen floor. He was crying, lying about how sorry he was that the landlord was dead.”

“And really, this woman Annie can drive everyone mad,” Post said. “She is just a farmer’s wife, a country woman, but once you’ve seen her, you will at once—Even Mark Ivanovich used to call her ‘babe.’ There is something magnetic about her, something …”

“I saw her, I know,” said the detective, blowing his nose into a red handkerchief.

Dukovsky blushed and looked down. The police chief nervously tapped at the saucer with his finger. The police officer coughed and started shuffling papers in his case. It seemed that only the doctor was impervious to the news about Annie.

The detective ordered them to bring in Nicholas. He was a tall young man; his nose was covered with smallpox scars, his chest was thin and fallen; he was dressed in an old coat given to him by the landlord. He came into Post’s room, bowed very low, and stood silently in front of the detective. His face looked sleepy, and his eyes were red from crying. He was so drunk that he could hardly keep his balance.

“Where is the landlord?” Rusty asked him.

“He was killed, your honor.” After saying this, Nicholas blinked, and started to cry.

“We know that he was killed. But where is he now? Where is his body?”

“People say that they pushed his body through the window and buried it in the garden.”

“Really? Hmm. The results of this investigation have already leaked to the servants.”

“This is bad. Please, tell us, my dear, where were you on the night the landlord was killed, that is, on Saturday night?”

Nicholas lifted his head, stretched his neck and thought for a while.

“I don’t know sir. I was drunk and I don’t remember anything.

“Alibi,” Dukovsky whispered, smiled and rubbed his hands.

“Well, all right. And why is there blood under the landlord’s window?”

Nicholas looked up and thought again.

“Think faster,” the police officer said to him.

“Wait a minute! That blood came from nothing, just from a chicken, your honor. I had to kill a chicken for the kitchen. I cut its neck, as I always do, but then the chicken got away from me, and ran across the garden. That’s where the blood came from.”

Efrem testified that Nicholas really did slaughter chickens for the kitchen, in different places every time, but no one thought that a chicken with its throat half cut could run across the garden. On the other hand, no one could deny it either.

“Alibi,” smiled Dukovsky. “And what a stupid alibi.”

“Were you close to Annie?”

“Yes, I sinned with her.”

“And did the landlord take her away from you?”

“Not exactly. Right after me, it was Mr. Post, then Ivan Mikhailovich, and then it was milord himself. That’s how I was.”

Post looked embarrassed and scratched his left eye. Dukovsky stared at him closely, read the embarrassment on his face, and trembled. He noticed dark blue pants which the manager wore, a detail to which he had previously paid no attention. The pants reminded him of the blue thread he had found on the bush.

Rusty, in his turn, looked suspiciously at Post.

“You can go,” he said to Nicolas.

“And now, may I ask you a question, Mr. Post. You were definitely here on Saturday night, weren’t you?”

“Yes, at ten p.m. I had a dinner with Mark lvanovich.”

“And what happened then?”

Post became embarrassed, and stood up from the table.

“Then—then—I don’t remember,” he mumbled. “I drank a lot that day. I don’t even recall where I fell asleep. Why are you all looking at me this way? Do you think that I killed him?”

“Where did you get up the next morning?”

“In the servants’ room, in a small bed next to the oven. Anyone can testify to that. I don’t remember how I got there though.”

“Please don’t get excited. Do you know Annie?”

“There was nothing special about her.”

“Did you pass her on to Banks?”

“Yes. Hey, Efrem, bring us some more mushrooms. Do you want any more tea, Egraf Kuzmich?”

After these words, there was a heavy, horrifying silence which lasted for about five minutes. Dukovsky remained silent and stared at Post’s pale face, as if he wanted to hypnotize it with his sharp eyes. The detective broke the silence,

“We should go to the big house, and talk to Maria Ivanovna. I wonder whether she might be helpful to us.”

Rusty and his assistant thanked Post for the breakfast and went to the manor house. There, they found Maria Ivanovna, a forty-five-year-old spinster who was Banks’s sister, in the family room. She grew pale when she saw the large leather bags in the guests’ hands, and the badges on their uniform caps.

“First of all, dear lady, I must beg your forgiveness for interrupting your, so to speak, special mood,” started the old detective in a very gallant and courteous manner. “We have come to you to ask just a few questions. You must have heard about what has happened. We think that your brother was, so to speak, killed. Well, no one can escape from death, neither kings, nor peasants. Can you please help us with any advice, or explanation?”

“Oh, don’t ask me,” said Maria Ivanovna, growing ever more pale and covering her face with her palms. “I can’t tell you anything. Anything. Please, I beg you. I can’t. What can I do? Oh, no. Not a word about my brother! No, even if I have to die, I won’t tell you!”

Maria Ivanovna burst out crying, and ran into another room. The detectives exchanged glances, shrugged their shoulders, and prepared to leave.

“Damned woman,” swore Dukovsky as they were leaving the mansion.

“She probably knows something, but she won’t tell us about it! Oh, have you noticed it? The maid had a very strange expression on her face, as if she knew something too. Just wait, you fools! We will discover everything!”

In the evening, Rusty and his assistant were going home along the pale moonlit road. They sat in the carriage and thought over the results achieved during the day. They were both tired and silent. Rusty did not like to talk on the way, as a rule, and the talkative Dukovsky kept silence to please the old man. At the end of the road, however, the assistant detective could not bear the silence, and broke it.

“Nicholas is involved in the case,” he said, “and this fact cannot be disputed. Just look at his face! I also have no doubt that, however, he is not the organizer of the crime. He is a stupid tool, and he was hired to kill. Do you follow me? The humble Post plays a role in this case as well: the blue pants, the embarrassment, lying on the bed, scared after the murder, no alibi, and then there’s Annie.”

“You can talk as much as you want; this is all just an empty chatter. So, you think that the killer must be among those who knew Annie? This conclusion is too hasty. You are too young for your job. You are a sucker. You should be sucking milk, and not investigating crimes. You were also among those who tried to flirt with Annie—does that mean anything? Annie—she lived at your house as your cook for a month, but I’m not leaping to any conclusions. On Saturday night, I played cards with you. I saw you on that night, with my own eyes; otherwise I would have suspected you as well.”

“The problem is not just this woman, it’s all the mean, nasty feelings that we have. A humble young man is angry about his disappointment in love. His ego suffers. He wants revenge. Next point. His thick lips indicate his strong sensitivity. Remember how he smacked his lips, when he spoke about Annie? I have no doubt that this scoundrel is dying from hidden passion. We can see here his hurt pride and unsatisfied lust. This is reason enough to commit murder. We have two persons on our hands. Who is the third one? Nicholas and Post held him. But who actually strangled him? Post is a humble man who is afraid of everything. And people like Nicholas simply do not know how to strangle with a pillow. If they kill, they kill with an axe. There must be someone else, the third person who strangled him, but who is it?”

Dukovsky moved his hat over his eyes and became lost in his thoughts. He kept silence until the moment the carriage arrived at the detective’s house.

“I have it now!” he cried out, as they came into the house and he took off his coat. “I’ve got it. I am surprised that it never struck me before! Do you know who the third person was?’

“Stop it, please! Here, supper is ready. Take a seat at the table, and let’s eat!”

The detective and Dukovsky sat down to have supper. Dukovsky poured a shot of vodka for himself, stood up, stretched himself and said, with his eyes shining,

“You must know the name of the third person who acted with the scoundrel Post. You should know that this was a woman! I am talking about the landlord’s sister, Maria Ivanovna.”

Rusty coughed, as he drank his vodka, and started at Dukovsky,

“Are you mad? How is your head? You don’t have a headache, do you?”

“I’m fine, just fine. All right, maybe I am going too far, maybe I have gone mad, but how can you explain her embarrassment when she saw us come in? How can you explain her unwillingness to testify? Let’s admit that this is not the most important thing. All right. But then, remember about their relationship. She hated her brother! She has strict morals, and he is a very dissipated man. Here is where the hatred abides! People say that he convinced her that he was Satan’s angel. And he even practiced Spiritualism in her presence.”

“And so what?”

“Don’t you understand? She killed him because she was a fanatic! She didn’t just kill a bad and dissipated man, but she also relieved the world of a bad man. And she thinks that this was her merit, her virtuous and heroic deed. Oh, you simply don’t know these old spinsters, these fanatics! Read Dostoevsky! Read Leskov! It was her, I am certain that it was her, and you call kill me if I am wrong. His sister strangled him. Oh, nasty woman! She attempted to deceive us. She thought, ‘Let me stay here and pray, and they will think that I am only a quiet, pious woman, and they won’t have any interest in me.’ This is the way all amateur criminals behave! My dear friend, Nikolai Ermolaeveich! Give this case to me! Let me personally complete the investigation and close the case. Dear sir! I have started it, and I want to finish it.”

The detective shook his head and frowned.

“I know for myself how to deal with complicated cases like this one!” he said. “And it is none of your business to interfere, unless I have asked you for your opinion. You should write down what I dictate to you—this is the duty for which you are paid. That is all.”

Dukovsky snorted and left the room, closing the door with a bang behind him.

“A clever young man, yes he is,” said Rusty looking toward the door. “However, he is too hot and unbalanced sometimes. I should buy him a gift at the next fair, a cigarette case or something.”

On the next day, a young man from the local village was brought to the detective. He had a big head and a harelip, and identified himself as the local shepherd Daniel. He gave a very interesting testimony.

“I was drunk a few days ago,” he said. “I visited my girlfriend and stayed there until midnight. On the way home, I was drunk and decided to take a swim in the pond. While I was swimming, I saw two men bring something heavy, wrapped in a black sack. I watched them climb onto the dam.

“Hey you, what’s up?” I called out to them. They got scared and ran away from me as fast as they could, in the direction of the Makarevo’s garden. I am pretty sure that the sack contained the landlord’s body.”

On the same day, in the late afternoon, both Mr. Post and Nicholas were arrested and brought under police guard to town. There, they were put in the local county jail.

PART TWO

Twelve days passed.

In the morning, the detective, Nikolai Ermolaevich, was sitting at his desk in the office shuffling through the case file. Dukovsky, as impatiently as a wolf in a cage, was pacing the room from one corner to another.

“If you are positive that Nicholas and Post are guilty,” he said, nervously fingering his small beard, “then why can’t you be sure that Maria Ivanovna is guilty as well? Don’t you have enough evidence?”

“I didn’t say that I am not convinced in this. I am convinced, but I still cannot believe the obvious. We don’t have enough material evidence, only philosophy—nothing more than the woman’s fanaticism.”

“Do you need an axe and blood-stained sheets? You lawyers! I will have to prove it to you! You should never discount human psychology. Maria Ivanovna will end up in Siberian prisons, I will prove it to you. And if you don’t think that philosophy is enough, I have something material. You will tell me yourself that my philosophy is right. I just need to go and make a few trips.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I am talking about the Swedish match. You forgot, but I have not forgotten it! I know who burned the match in the murdered man’s room. It was neither Nicholas nor Post—they both had no matches on them when we searched them. It was the third person, that is, Maria Ivanovna, and I will prove it to you. Let me just trace the match along the county, and make some inquiries.”

“All right, all right, but for now, you’d better have a seat at your desk. We will be starting the interrogations soon.”

Dukovsky sat at his desk, and buried his nose in the papers.

“Let Nicholas Tetekov be brought in for interrogation,” said the detective.

Nicholas was brought in by a guard. He was pale and very thin, almost skeletal. He was trembling.

“Mr. Tetekov,” Tchuhikov started. “Five years ago, in the town of M., you were placed under probation by the judge of the first district for stealing, and you received a prison sentence. Three years ago, you were convicted of theft for the second time, and imprisoned.”

They saw the expression of surprise clearly displayed on Nicholas’s face. He was amazed that the detectives knew everything about him. But soon his amazement changed into uncontrollable grief. He started crying, and was asked to go wash his face and calm down. He was taken away.

“Bring Mr. Post in,” ordered the detective. They brought Post. The young man had changed a lot during the last few days.

He had lost a lot of weight, and his skin had become pale and papery. Apathy and depression were obvious in his eyes.

“Take a seat, Post,” said Rusty.

“I hope that this time you will be more considerate and won’t lie to us, as you have on previous occasions. For days, you have denied your participation in the murder of Mr. Banks, in spite of the numerous pieces of material evidence which speak against you. This is not logical. If you make a full deposition, your sentence will be reduced. I am requesting your cooperation for the last time. If you don’t accept your guilt by tomorrow, it will be too late. So, start telling us the truth.”

“I don’t know anything. I don’t know any of your material evidence,” said Post.

“You are wrong. Let me tell you how the events developed during the night of the crime. On Saturday night, you sat in Banks’ bedroom, drinking vodka and beer with him.”

At this moment, Dukovsky cast a piercing glance at Post, and did not avert it during the whole monologue.

“Nicholas served you. At some point after midnight, Mark Ivanovich told you that he wanted to go to bed. He always went to sleep at one o’clock. When he was taking off his boots, and giving you orders for the morrow, you and Nicholas, at a particular special sign, jumped at your drunk master, caught him by his hands, and pressed him against the bed. One of you sat on his legs; the other one sat on his head. At that moment, a woman whom you know very well, in a dark-colored dress, came from the entrance hall. You had agreed with her earlier about her participation in this criminal case. She snatched a pillow, and started strangling the poor man with it. During the fight, the candle went down. The woman took out a box of Swedish matches, and lit the candle. It is so? I see from your face that I am telling the truth. Listen further. When you had strangled him, and made certain that he was no longer breathing, you and Nicholas pushed him through the window, and put him under the thistle bush. You were afraid that he might come back to life, so you hit him with something sharp. Then you dragged him to the lilac tree. You were thinking about how to dispose of the body. You dragged him further, across the fence and along the road. Then, you brought him to the dam at the pond. There, you were scared by a peasant. What happened to you?”

Post’s face had lost all its color. He looked like a corpse. He stood up and swayed, almost fell, losing his balance.

“I can’t breathe. All right, all right. Let it be as you want, but let me breathe. Please.” The guard removed Post from the room.

“Finally, he has accepted his guilt,” said Rusty, making a sweet yawn. “He finally gave himself up. I did it in a very clever manner. I gave him all these facts.”

“He did not even deny the woman in black,” inserted Dukovsky. “But I can’t forget about this Swedish match. I can’t stand it any more. Good-bye. I have to go.”

Dukovsky put on his hat and left.

Rusty started interrogating Annie. She said that she did not know anything.

“I only slept with you, and no one else,” she said.

At six o’clock that evening, Dukovsky came back. He was more excited than he had ever been. His fingers were trembling to such an extent that he was not able to undo his coat. His cheeks were burning. It was clear that he brought very important news. “We are done with the case,” he said, arriving in the Rusty’s office and dropping into the armchair.

“I can swear on my word of honor that I am a genius.”

“Listen, you damned devil! Listen to me carefully, and you will he surprised, my dear friend. It is both funny and sad. We already have three people involved in this case, and I have found the fourth person; to be exact, the fourth woman, because she is a woman. And what a woman! I would have given away ten years of my life, just to touch her shoulders, she is so beautiful. But listen. I went to Banks’s estate and started making circles around it. I went to all the country stores, drug stores, pubs, and restaurants, asking for Swedish matches everywhere. Everyone said no. I searched all day, until night came. I lost hope at least twenty times, and twenty times I had it again, entering the next place. So, I spent the whole day like this, and finally, about an hour ago, I found what I was looking for. The place is not far from here, maybe three miles or so. They gave me a package with ten boxes of matches, one box was missing. So I asked the owner who had bought the box. He told me about this woman, and named her. He said, ‘She liked them, so she burned them one after another.’ My dear friend, Nikolai Ermolaevich. Look at me, and you will see what kind of a man a school dropout can become! You won’t believe it! Today, I have found my self-respect. Well, well, let’s go now!”

“Where are we going?”

“We have to go to the fourth member of the gang. We have to hurry. Otherwise, I will burn with impatience. Do you know who she is? You’ll never guess, never! She is the young wife of our doctor, the old man. Her name is Olga Petrovna, that’s who she is. She bought this box of matches.”

“My friend, you are completely crazy.”

“Listen to me. First of all, she smokes. Secondly, she was completely, madly in love with Banks. He rejected her love for this peasant woman, Annie. It was her revenge. Now I remember that once I saw them hiding behind the kitchen curtain. She swore that she loved him, and he took a drag from her cigarette and blew the smoke in her face. But it is getting dark, my friend, let’s go faster.”

“Have I become so foolish that I would allow an idiot like you to bother a noble and honest woman in the middle of the night?”

“Do you think that she is noble and honest? Then you are a spineless wimp and not a detective! I have never scolded you before, but now I have to speak my mind. You are a coward with no willpower! My dear, Nikolai Ermolaevich.”

The detective motioned him away and spat on the floor.

“Please, let’s go! I am not asking this for my own benefit, but in the interest of the law. I am begging you. Please, do me this favor, just once in your life! Look, I can kneel in front of you! Dear Nikolai Ermolaevich, please be so kind, please. You can call me stupid, if I am wrong about this woman. But this is such an outstanding case. You will be famous all over the country. They will make you a special investigator for the most important cases. You must believe me, old man.”

The old detective frowned, and slowly and reluctantly moved his hand to his hat.

“Damn it! I will have to go with you,” he said.

It was dark when the detective’s carriage arrived at the entrance of the doctor’s house.

“We are swine,” said Rusty, ringing the doorbell. “We should not be troubling people at this time.”

“This is nothing. Don’t be afraid. Tell her that your carriage is broken.”

A tall, plump woman, about twenty-three years old, opened the door for Rusty and Dukovsky. She was a lush brunette, with shining hair and full red lips. It was Olga Petrovna herself.

“Oh, this is so pleasant,” she said. “You have come just in time for dinner. My husband is away on business. But we can have dinner without him. Have a seat, please. Did you come from your investigation?”

“Yes, you see, my carriage has broken next to your house,” said Rusty, entering the living room and taking a seat in an armchair.

“Tell her at once. Scare her!” Dukovsky hissed. “Scare her! Do it now!”

“The carriage, yes. We just decided to drop in.”

“Scare her at once!” Dukovsky whispered again. “Otherwise, if you procrastinate, she will guess that we know.”

“Leave me alone,” Rusty murmured, standing up and going to the window, “I can’t do it! You started this, so you will have to finish it.”

“Yes, the carriage,” said Dukovsky, coming to the woman and wrinkling his long nose. “But we haven’t come to have dinner, or see your husband. We came here to ask you, dear lady, where is Mark Ivanovich, whom you killed?”

“What? Which Mark Ivanovich?” mumbled the woman, blushing all over. “I don’t remember anything.”

“I am asking you in the name of the law. Where is Mr. Banks? We know everything.”

“From whom?” asked the woman, unable to stand Dukovsky’s piercing glance.

“You must show us where he is.”

“But how did you find me? Who told you?”

“We know everything. I insist, in the name of the law!”

The detective, encouraged by the woman’s embarrassment, came to her and said,

“Lead us to his body, and then we will leave. Otherwise, we will have to take legal measures.”

“Why do you want him?”

“Why? Are you asking us questions, dear lady? We should be asking you the questions. You are trembling, and you are embarrassed. Yes, he was murdered, and he was killed by you. You are one of the participants, and the other gang members have given your name to us.”

The doctor’s wife became pale.

“Let’s go,” she said in a quiet voice, clasping her hands.

“I hid him in the bathhouse at the end of our property. But please, I implore you, don’t say anything to my husband. He won’t be able to stand this news.”

The woman took a big key from the nail on the wall, and brought her guests through the back entrance, first to the kitchen and then to the backyard. It was dark outside. A light rain was drizzling. The woman went forward. Rusty and Dukovsky followed her, stepping through the tall grass, smelling the damp scent of the wild weeds and some food scraps which crunched under their feet. It was a big backyard. Soon the garbage ended, and their feet felt the freshly ploughed soil. They saw the figures of the tall trees in the dark, behind the trees they saw a small house with a slanted chimney.

“This is the bathhouse,” the woman said. “But please don’t tell anyone, I implore you.”

As they came to the bathhouse, Rusty and Dukovsky saw a huge lock hanging on the door.

“Prepare your matches,” said the detective to his assistant. The woman opened the lock and led the two guests into the bathhouse. Dukovsky lit his match and the light fell into the bathhouse. There was a small table in the middle. Next to it, there was a small, heavy teapot, a bowl of cold soup, and a few other plates with the remains of some sauce.

They went into the second room, the sauna itself. In the middle, there was another table. On the table, there was a big plate with ham, a bottle of vodka, some plates, knives, and forks.

“Where is the body? Where is he?” asked the detective.

“He is on the upper shelf,” whispered the woman, pale and trembling all over.

Dukovsky took a piece of candle from the table, lit it, and climbed to the upper shelf. There he saw a man’s body lying quietly on a goose down mattress. The body produced a quiet snoring.

“We’ve been deceived! Look at this! This isn’t him. This is some man who is alive.”

“Hey, you! Who are you, damn it!”

The body moved a little, and made a loud whistle. Dukovsky nudged him with his elbow. The body lifted up a hand, stretched and tried to stand up.

“Who is out there?” said the hoarse and heavy bass. “What do you want? What?”

Dukovsky lifted the piece of candle to the face of the unknown man and cried from amazement.

In the red face, in the untidy and uncombed hair, in the very black mustache, one end of which was nicely curved up toward the ceiling, he saw Mr. Banks himself.

“Mark Ivanovich! Is it you? I can’t believe my eyes!”

The detective looked up and froze in amazement.

“Yes, it’s me. And this is you, Dukovsky. What the hell are you doing here? And there, below, who’s that dirty devil down there? Oh my god! It’s the detective himself. What are you doing here, my old buddy?”

Banks jumped down and embraced Rusty. Olga Petrovna vanished.

“How did you get here? Let’s have a drink, damn it. Let’s drink! Who brought you here, my friends? How did you find out that I was here? However, no matter. Let’s have a drink!”

Banks lit the lamp, and poured three shots of vodka.

“Well, I can’t quite understand. Is it you, or not?” asked the detective.

“Cut it out, will you? Are you going to read me a moral on how to behave? Stop it. Cut it out. And you, young man Dukovsky, have a shot as well. Let us talk about life, my friends, let us talk. Why are you staring at me? Drink!”

“I cannot understand,” said the detective, drinking his vodka automatically. “What are you doing here?”

“Why not here, if here is a good place for me to be?” Banks had a drink, and took a big piece of ham.

“As you can see, I live with the doctor’s wife. I live here, in a very quiet and desolate place, like a spirit of the house. Drink, brother! You see, I decided to take pity on her, and to stay here in this remote and forgotten bathhouse. I live here like a hermit. I eat good food. Next week, I am going to leave her. I am bored by this life.”

“I cannot understand,” said Dukovsky.

“What cannot you understand?”

“I cannot understand how one of your boots ended up in the garden.”

“Which boot?”

“We found one of your boots in the bedroom, and the other one in the garden.”

“Why do you want to know about that? This is none of your business. Have another shot, damn it! If you woke me up, then you should have another shot.”

They had another shot and Banks continued,

“This is an interesting story, brothers, with this boot. You know, I didn’t want to go to Olga. First of all, I was feeling ill, and then I was a little bit drunk. So she came under my window and started scolding me. All women are the same. So I took a boot and threw it at her. Ha-ha-ha. I said, ‘Stop scolding me.’ So she climbed up to the window, lit a lamp, and gave me a good beating when I was drunk. She gave me a good beating, brought me in here, and locked me in. Now I enjoy good cooking here. Love, vodka, and good food. And what about you? Rusty, where are you going?”

The disappointed detective spat on the floor and left the bath house. Dukovsky, his head down, followed him. Without saying a word to each other, they sat in the carriage and went home. It was the longest and the dullest trip they had ever made together. They were both silent. Rusty was trembling uneasily all the way. Dukovsky was hiding his face in the collar of his coat, as if he was afraid that the darkness and the drizzling rain could read the feeling of shame on his face.

When they arrived home, the detective found the old Dr. Tutuev in their house. The doctor was sitting at the desk, making deep sighs and shuffling a newspaper.

“What sort of a world are we living in?” He met the detective with a sad smile. “Again Austria presses its demands. And Mr. Gladstone, the British prime minister, I am worried for him.”

Rusty threw his hat in the corner of the room, shaking with all his body.

“Hey you, damned skeleton, don’t even approach me! I have told you a thousand times not to talk to me about politics. I have other things to do besides politics. You’d better go home. And you,” he threatened to Dukovsky with his fist, “I will never forgive these things.”

“But it was the Swedish match. How could I know?”

“I wish you would choke on your Swedish match. Get out of here, out of my sight, otherwise I will beat you black and blue. I don’t want to see you for another second.”

Dukovsky made a deep sigh, took his hat, and left.

“I will go and have a good drink,” he said walking out of the gates and going slowly to the pub.

When the doctor’s wife came in from the bathhouse, she met her husband in the living room.

“Why did the detectives come?” her husband asked her.

“They came to tell you that they have found Banks. And, can you imagine, they found him with somebody else’s wife.”

“Oh, Mark Ivanovich, Mark Ivanovich,” said the doctor, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. “I told you that dissipation is no good. I told you this, and you did not listen to me.”