A Vengeful Longing

11

As he took the key from the yardkeeper, a grizzled old soldier with a dour demeanour, a thought occurred to Porfiry: ‘Why is it never let?’

The yardkeeper shrugged.

‘But don’t the owners want the rent from it?’

‘You’ll have to ask them.’ After a long pause, he added: ‘About that.’

‘Don’t worry, we will,’ said Porfiry. The pronouncement seemed not to concern the veteran. ‘Have you never seen anyone going into or coming out of the room? Surely you have been curious.’

The yardkeeper gave a deep, wheezy sigh. ‘All sorts of people come and go here. I can’t be expected to notice them all.’

Porfiry echoed the yardkeeper’s sigh with one of his own. ‘Very well. And we will also have the key to the room next to it, Rostanev’s, if you please. I take it the room is still unlet?’

The yardkeeper nodded sharply. ‘Not for long.’ Again there was a pause before he completed his thought: ‘I shouldn’t wonder.’

Porfiry took the key in two jerky moves, fixing the yardkeeper with a vindictive gaze.

Porfiry acknowledged, as he placed the key in the lock, a reluctance to confront the emptiness that lay beyond that door. He hesitated and even came close to suggesting that they should look in Rostanev’s room first. It was the peculiar apprehension that comes on the threshold of attainment. The greater part of his dread was made up of the fear that they might, in fact, find nothing; that all his deductions, instincts and intimations had been mistaken and had led him simply to an empty room. He recognised another fear too, wholly irrational but now more powerful: that of coming face-to-face with the man they were tracking down. He reasoned that there was no real possibility that the murderer would be inside the room now and yet he felt his sinister presence lying in wait for him. As he turned the key, he had the sense that he was about to unleash something formless and evil upon the world.

The first thing that he saw, upon opening the door, was a full-length mirror in a wooden frame on a swivel stand. He moved towards it, noting the stifling heat and acrid chemical smell in the room. The mirror, awash with sunlight, reflected his image back to him, mockingly, the room presenting him with his own emptiness. Virginsky came into the frame, next to him, an eyebrow cocked wryly. The two men paused to consider their own reflections.

‘What does this tell you, Pavel Pavlovich?’

‘That he is vain?’

‘Good. That is certainly one word for it. That he takes the trouble to furnish an otherwise empty room’ — Porfiry cast a glance around, confirming this description — ‘with a mirror suggests a level of self-absorption that might justifiably be described as morbid. What else? There on the floor, for instance, what do you see?’

Virginsky directed a frown towards where Porfiry was pointing. ‘Dust?’

‘Describe it.’

‘It is. .’ Virginsky crouched down to examine the dusty boards more closely. ‘Black.’

Porfiry nodded encouragement.

‘Like charcoal dust.’

‘Indeed. Possibly it has come from the stove. Or possibly it is from the manufacture of black powder explosive. Do you notice anything else unusual, Pavel Pavlovich?’

Virginsky furrowed his brows further and scanned the room. ‘Footprints. In the dust,’ he asserted, more confident now.

‘Yes. And?’

Virginsky’s gaze latched on to a single gleaming strip in the grimy floor. ‘One board has no dust on it at all and no footprints, either.’

‘Suggesting?’

‘Suggesting. . suggesting it was not in place when the dust was deposited.’

Porfiry smiled and took out his cigarette case. He went so far as to place a cigarette in his mouth.

‘Porfiry Petrovich, do you think it wise to light a cigarette in this room, given that it has likely served as a manufactory of explosive materiel?’

Porfiry replaced the cigarette hastily in its case. ‘Quite so, dear boy. Now, as you are already down there, perhaps you would be good enough to see if the board in question is, as I suspect it might be. .‘

‘Loose,’ said Virginsky, lifting the board clear with an echoing clatter.

Porfiry crossed the room, his soles creaking in the dust, to look down on their discovery. Lying along the narrow uncovered space was a length of rubber hose, like a black snake feeding on the darkness below the boards. Virginsky lifted one end out and gently tugged it, to discover that the other end, out of sight beyond the extent of the exposed trench, was firmly attached to something. He looked at Porfiry quizzically and handed him the loose end as he continued to grub around in the floor space.

‘There’s an end of rope here too, tucked away. I can just reach it.’ Virginsky eased his hand under the board.

Porfiry continued to puzzle over the pipe, though he kept a distracted eye on Virginsky too, especially when the young man produced, in the manner of a conjuror with his rabbit, the train of a rope ladder, the wooden rungs knocking against the open edge of the boards. Porfiry was torn between the two pieces of evidence. He laid down the pipe and turned his attention to the rope ladder. ‘Here, look at this,’ he said, showing Virginsky the frayed end beyond the knot that tied together the two sides of the ladder. Reddish-brown flakes and particles were caught up in the fibres of the rope, marking a narrow band. ‘What do you say that is?’

‘Rust?’

‘Yes. That’s what it looks like to me too. We will take this back to the bureau. Now, what are we to make of this hose?’

Virginsky picked up the stiffly pliable pipe and ran his hands down its length as far as he could. He got on to his knees and peered into the hole, following its course into darkness. ‘It seems to be going towards the room next door.’

Porfiry nodded.

‘Rostanev’s room,’ said Virginsky, looking up at Porfiry. His voice was slightly breathless.

‘Shall we see where it comes out?’ Porfiry smiled and fluttered his eyelashes, as if he had suggested a mildly diverting pastime.

The image of the room as they had last seen it superimposed itself on the negative stillness that met them now. The only residue of that grotesque tableau was the dark russet stain in the centre of the thin, comfortless mattress. The bed dominated the room, which seemed far smaller than its neighbour.

‘Someone must be paying the rent for that room next door,’ mused Porfiry. ‘Why else would they allow it to remain empty? I dare say, however, that if we were to pursue the matter with the owners, our enquiries would lead to Nobody.’

‘He must be a man of some standing,’ ventured Virginsky. ‘To be able to afford the rent on a vacant room, presumably in addition to his proper lodgings.’

‘It may be that he has a private income as well as a salary. Even so, there are many nobles who manage to destitute themselves despite such double advantages. Perhaps he has found a way, uniquely in St Petersburg, to live so far within his means that he is able to meet the extra burden comfortably.’

The space beneath the bed was empty now, as all Rostanev’s boxes of belongings, the quills, papers and jars of ink, had been removed to the police bureau. It was apparent that the deceased clerk had had little else to his name. The room resonated with a faintly metallic echo of despair, the tubular-constructed iron bedsteadvibrating to their voices.

‘The pipe was at the rear of the room. It would come out somewhere around there, I think,’ said Porfiry pointing to the far corner of the room. ‘Somewhat near that leg of the bed.’

Virginsky put a hand on the bed and gave it a testing push. It moved with a protesting wail and a slight tug of resistance. A curve of the black hose, which appeared to be rammed deep inside the end of the hollow leg, came snaking out of a knot hole in the floor. The bed settled unevenly, tipped up at one corner by the tough hose.

‘What on earth?’ cried Virginsky.

‘The voices,’ said Porfiry, startled by his own conclusion.

‘Who? Who is he?’ Back in his chambers, Porfiry lit a cigarette and stared wonderingly at Virginsky. ‘We must have missed something, Pavel Pavlovich. I can feel him. I have the quite desperate sensation that I have encountered him. That I have stared him in the face and even spoken to him. That’s how real he seems to me.’

There was a knock at the door. Zamyotov peered in. ‘This has come for you.’ His tone was ironically excited; he waved a letter tantalisingly through the gap in the door. Porfiry nodded to Virginsky, who rose and snatched it from him. ‘Temper!’ chided Zamyotov, before disappearing.

‘It’s from the owners of Gorokhovaya 97, following our enquiry concerning the letting arrangements of the room next to Rostanev’s.’

‘Don’t tell me — Nikolai Nobody,’ said Porfiry despondently.

‘No. According to this, both rooms were let to Rostanev.’

‘But that’s impossible,’ cried Porfiry. ‘As well as insane. I mean, on his salary it’s a miracle he could afford the rent on one room, let alone two. And if he did rent two, why would he choose to live in the smaller one? No, this is a screen.’ Porfiry applied himself to smoking intently for several moments. ‘Someone. . paid his rent for him. . and used the vacant room for his own purposes. Who would do such a thing?’ Porfiry Petrovich took one final deep draw on his cigarette, so deep that he fell into a coughing fit. When at last it died down, his eyes running with tears, he was able to gasp: ‘Pavel Pavlovich, give me that school list again.’

Virginsky crossed to Porfiry’s desk with the paper. Porfiry scanned the names eagerly. ‘We have him,’ he said quietly, his voice hoarse from the recent paroxysm.