A Razor Wrapped in Silk

41 Slava unmasked

The scream told him everything. It also sobered him up completely.

It was a woman’s scream.

Porfiry propelled himself upwards at the shadow. He met little resistance. She — for it was without doubt a woman — was slight of build and entirely lacking in strength. Her weapon had fallen uselessly from her hand as soon as she had landed the blow. His hands gripped skin and bone, slippery with warm liquid. A spasm of animal tension passed from her into him and then he felt her body collapse and he found that he was having to hold her up. He pulled her to him, letting his body take her weight as he wrapped one arm around her shoulder as if in an embrace.

The door burst open and Slava came in holding aloft a candle. The woman’s face was hidden against the chest of the man she had just attacked, but her hair was revealed to be an intensely black and unruly mass. Porfiry felt her frail body shake in convulsive sobs.

‘Good heavens, Porfiry Petrovich, you have a woman in your room!’ Slava made the observation with a salacious leer.

‘There is no need to feign surprise. You must have let her in.’

‘Well, yes. She assured me she was a friend of yours. You were not here. She said she would wait. She …’ Slava hesitated, momentarily embarrassed.

‘She made it worth your while,’ suggested Porfiry bluntly.

‘I took pity on her.’

‘You hid her in your room.’

‘That’s true,’ conceded Slava. ‘She wanted to surprise you. So she said. I am not a prude. We are all human beings. Subject to human needs and urges. I take the scientific, rather than the moral, approach. I am a man of the new generation.’

‘Shut up.’

‘But I had to intervene when I heard the scream. The scream did not reflect well on you, Porfiry Petrovich.’

‘She tried to kill me!’

‘So it was your scream?’

‘No!’ cried Porfiry in exasperation. ‘It was her scream. I dare say she did not expect me to be wearing this.’ Porfiry felt at the stiff leather collar around his neck with one hand, holding his assailant close to him with the other.

‘It is an unusual item of nocturnal apparel. You wear it for what reason?’

‘For protection, of course! It was given to me by an officer of the Third Section, to protect me from an attack by you.’ Porfiry gave the final words an indignant emphasis.

‘By me? But why would I wish to attack you?’

‘I believed you to be a revolutionary assassin.’

‘But Porfiry Petrovich, that’s not true!’

‘Then what are you, Slava?’

‘What am I? I am your manservant.’

‘There is something else.’

‘Is that blood? Are you hurt? Should I rouse a doctor?’

‘It is not my blood. It is hers. I do not believe it is serious. She appears to have nicked her hand on the blade of the razor when it struck the collar and flew out of her grip.’

‘She has a razor? Sensational! A magistrate attacked in his bed by a razor-wielding beauty. It is even more sensational than I had hoped.’

‘So that’s it. You’re not a revolutionary. You’re not a Third Section agent. You’re a damned journalist!’

‘Now now. Less of the damned. That’s not very nice, in front of a lady.’

‘She attempted to murder me. And that is not the worst of her crimes. She had better get used to the word.’

‘Who is she?’

Porfiry looked down at the crown of black hair. He leaned forward so that her inert head fell away from his chest and her face was revealed. ‘Aglaia Filippovna.’

Her eyes were closed, as if she were still in the bed in the Naryskin Palace, sunk in her comatose refuge.

‘You are still my servant, I believe,’ said Porfiry to Slava. ‘You will go into the bureau and rouse the duty sergeant on the night desk. Tell him that I have apprehended the murderer of Yelena Filippovna and the three children, Dmitri Krasotkin, Artur Smurov and Svetlana Chisova.’

‘She?’

‘Yes. It’s true, is it not, Aglaia Filippovna? You killed the children and then you killed your sister. What’s more, you tried to make it look like your sister was the murderer of the children by wearing her ring when you strangled the children.’

Aglaia’s eyes opened. ‘Yelena? Is Yelena here?’

‘Yelena is dead, Aglaia Filippovna — as you well know. This is all play-acting. There has been so much play-acting in this case. I am worn out with it all.’

Her eyes held his for a moment. He looked into them to see if he could find any explanation for the crimes he was sure she had committed. But there was only colour, a colour as bright and alluring as a gemstone, and as remorseless.