She Lover of Death

I. From the Newspapers

By Motor to Paris

At noon tomorrow a Russian sportsman will set out from Moscow to Paris on a three-wheeled motor vehicle. E.P. Neimless has set himself the goal of establishing a new distance and speed record for self-propelled carriages.

In his bold challenge Mr Neimless intends to cover the 2800 versts separating the capitals of the two friendly nations in twelve days, not including day-time or night-time halts or any halts that may be required for repairs or due to the poor condition of the roads. This latter circumstance, that is, the appalling state of the roads, especially in the Wisla region, is the greatest obstacle to the success of this hazardous venture. We all recall last year’s incident in which Baron von Liebnitz’s auto was shaken to pieces by the potholes near Pinsk.

The starting point of Mr Neimless’s journey will be Moscow’s Triumphal Arch. He will be escorted by his valet in a britzka, which will carry his luggage and spare parts for the three-wheeler. We shall be following the daredevil’s progress and printing telegrams received from points along his arduous route.

The Moscow Gazette, 22

September (5 October) 1900

p.4

II. From Columbine’s Diary

I wake in order to fall asleep

It turns out that I know nothing. Who I am, why I am alive or what life really is. Genji once quoted some ancient Japanese sage who said: ‘Life is a dream seen in a dream.’

The ancient Japanese was absolutely right. Only half an hour ago I thought that I was awake. That I had been asleep for many days and only woken when the light of the electric torch shone into my eyes and a worried voice asked: ‘Columbine, are you alive?’ And at that moment I dreamed that I awoke from a dream. I seemed to hear the sounds of the real world again, to see its living colours, and the glass bell jar separating me from reality was shattered. There was no Eternal Bridegroom called Death, no mysterious and alluring World Beyond, no mystical Signs, no spirits, no summons from out of the blackness.

For three days after I was almost snatched away by ‘death with a small letter’, I revelled in my imaginary freedom – I laughed a lot and cried a lot, I marvelled at the most common everyday nonsense, ate cakes and sewed a quite incredible dress. I pricked all my fingers very badly, I was working with such awkward material. Every time I cried out I felt even happier, because the pain confirmed the reality of existence. As if pain could not be dreamed!

Today I put on my stunning new outfit and was absolutely delighted with it. No one else has a dress like it. It is made of ‘devil’s leather’, it glitters and shimmers and crackles. Genji bought a driving suit of the same material for his motor journey, and I immediately fell in love with it.

The dress is absolutely unendurable. I always feel either hot or cold in it, but how it sparkles! Everyone in the street kept turning to look at me.

I was absolutely certain that the sun, the sky, the crackling dress, and the handsome man with the dark hair and the calm voice really did exist, that this was real life and I didn’t want anything else.

The gaudy fairground sideshow erected by that old liar Prospero had collapsed like a house of cards at the first breath of a fresh, real wind.

Genji escorted me to my door again, as he had done for the previous two days. He thought that after what had happened I was afraid to climb the stairs alone. I wasn’t afraid at all, but I wanted him to escort me.

He treats me like a porcelain vase. Before he leaves he kisses my hand. I am sure that he has feelings for me. But he is a gentleman and no doubt he feels bound by the fact that he saved my life: what if I do not spurn him simply out of a feeling of gratitude? How funny he is! As if gratitude had anything at all to do with love. But I like him even more for it.

Never mind, I thought. What’s the hurry? Let him go on his stupid motor trip. If something starts between us now, he won’t be able to test his oil-stove on wheels, and he wants to do it so much. All men really are still boys, no matter what their age.

After Paris I’ll really take him in hand. God willing, the oil-stove will break down a hundred versts from Moscow, and then he will be back soon, I fantasised. But I am prepared to wait three weeks, let him set his record. Life is long and there is so much time for happiness.

I was wrong. Life is short. And Genji was only a dream, like everything else – the sun, the sky, the new dress.

I have just woken up.

I came home, drank some tea, twirled in front of the mirror for a moment to admire the way the devil’s leather sparkled in the bluish light of the lamp. And then my eyes fell on a small volume in leather binding with gold-edged pages. I sat down, opened the book where it was marked and started to read.

It was a farewell gift from Prospero. A medieval German tract with a long title: The Secret Meditations of an Anonymous Author on the Experiences of his Life and What he has Heard from People Worthy to be Trusted. Two days earlier, when everyone walked out into the street in silence, leaving the Doge alone, and no one even said goodbye, I was touched by his imploring glance and I went back from the door, shook his hand and kissed him on the cheek – in memory of all that there had been between us.

He understood what my kiss meant, and he didn’t try to kiss me in return or take me in his arms.

‘Goodbye, my child,’ he said in a sad, formal voice which acknowledged that everything that used to be was over for ever. ‘You were the belated festival of my life, and no festival can last for long. Thank you for warming my weary heart with the glow of your sweet warmth. I have prepared a small gift for you – as a token of my gratitude.’

He picked a small volume up off the table and took a sheet of paper out of his pocket.

‘Do not read this treatise from cover to cover, it contains many things that are dark and obscure. At your age you should not burden your mind with such doleful wisdom. But you must read the chapter entitled “Cases in which love is more powerful than death”. Look, I’m marking it with this sheet of paper. And note the sheet of paper too, it is more than three hundred years old. Extremely precious paper from the sixteenth century, with the watermarks of the French king François I. Perhaps when you’ve read the chapter I’ve marked, you might feel like writing me a short letter. Use this sheet of paper – adorned with your writing, it will become one of the most precious relics of my empty and worthless life . . . And do not think badly of me.’

I examined the sheet of paper curiously. Against the light I could see a rounded lily and the letter ‘F’. Prospero understands beautiful things. I thought his gift was touching and old-fashioned, enchanting in fact.

I didn’t open the book for two days – I was not in the mood for reading treatises. But today, after saying goodbye to Genji for three whole weeks, I decided to see whether the medieval author could tell me anything new about love.

I took out the bookmark, set it aside and started reading. Some learned canon, whose name was indicated on the cover only by the letter ‘W’, asserted that in the eternal opposition between love and death, the latter usually won the upper hand, but there were some cases, very rare, when the devoted love of two hearts soared beyond the limits set for a mortal being and established passion in eternity, so that with the passing of time love did not wane but, on the contrary, shone ever brighter and brighter. The strange canon believed that the guarantee of passion’s immortalisation was a dual suicide, committed by the lovers so that life could not part them. The author believed that in this way they subordinated death to their feelings of love, making it love’s faithful slave for ever.

When I was tired of the medieval freethinker’s long sentences and the gothic script, I looked up from the yellow pages and started wondering what all this meant. Not the text, the meaning of which was quite clear, despite its florid style, but the gift. Was Prospero trying to tell me that he loved me and that his love was stronger than death? That he was not really death’s servant, but had always served only love? And what should I write to him?

I decided that I would start like this: ‘Dear Doge, I shall always be grateful to you, because you taught me the rudiments of those two most important disciplines of all – love and death. But these are subjects that everyone must master independently, and everyone must take the examinations on the basis of their own research.’

I opened the inkwell, picked up the sheet of paper and . . .

And I immediately forgot about the treatise, the Doge and the letter. Familiar angular letters had appeared, faintly, but perfectly clearly, through the marbling of the old paper, forming two words: Ich warte.¹

I didn’t realise straight away what the words meant. I was simply surprised that they could have appeared like that out of nowhere. After all, two days earlier I had examined the sheet of paper very closely, and it was absolutely blank! The letters were not written with a pen, they had literally bled through, as if they had percolated out of the dense paper. I shook my head to drive away the apparition, but it didn’t disappear. Then I pinched myself on the arm to wake myself up.

And I did wake up. The veil fell from my eyes, the hourglass was reversed and the world was turned back from its head on to its feet.

Tsarevich Death is waiting for me. He is no chimera and no fiction. He exists. He loves me, he is calling me, and I must answer his call.

The last time, when Caliban interrupted me, I was still not ready for this meeting – I was concerned with all sorts of nonsense, I was struggling to drag the farewell poem out of myself by force. That was why he gave me a period of grace. But now the time has come. My betrothed is weary of waiting for me, and I am going.

I don’t have to invent anything, it’s all very simple. How I shall look after I am gone is not important. The dream that is called life will be scattered like mist, and in its place I shall see a new dream, indescribably more beautiful.

Go out on to the balcony, into the darkness. Open the cast-iron gate. The sheet-metal roof of the building opposite gleams dully in the light of the moon and the stars. It is close, but too far away to jump on to. But anyway, walk back into the room, take a good run and go soaring out into empty space. It will be a breathtaking flight – straight into the embrace of the Eternal Beloved. I feel sorry for my mother and father. But they are far away. I see the little town – log-walled houses amid the white snowdrifts. I see the river – black water, with huge rafts of ice creeping along it. Masha Mironova is standing on one ice-floe and there is a tight bunch of people on another. The black crack between them grows wider and wider. The Angara is like a length of white cloth that has been cut crookedly along its length.

And here is the poem. No need to rack my brains – I just have to write it down.

That’s all. Now just run and jump.

To the publisher

I have no time to edit and transcribe this confused but honest story. I have only one request, please discard the lines that have been crossed out. Let the reader see me, not as I was, but as I wish to be seen.

M.M.

III. From the ‘Agents’ Reports’ File

To His Honour Lieutenant-Colonel Besikov

(Private and confidential)

Dear Lieutenant-Colonel,

You must be surprised that I am writing to you again after our meeting yesterday, which took place at your insistence and concluded with my curses, cries and shameful tears. Or perhaps you are not surprised, since you despise me and are convinced of my weakness. But let that be as you wish. Probably you are right about me, and I would never have escaped from your tenacious grasp if not for the events of the night just past.

Consider this letter an official document or, if you prefer, my formal testimony. But if this letter is not sufficient, I am willing to confirm my evidence to any agency of law-enforcement, even under oath.

I could not get to sleep last night, my nerves were strained after our discussion and – why should I pretend otherwise? – I was frightened. I am a man of an impressionable and hypochondriacal disposition, and your threat to have me exiled to Yakutsk, and also to inform the political exiles there that I had collaborated with the gendarmes, had unsettled my nerves completely.

And so I rushed about the room, tousling my hair and wringing my hands – in short, I was in a desperate, cowardly state. I even started sobbing once, I felt so terribly sorry for myself. If I did not detest suicide so fiercely as a result of my poor beloved brother’s death last year (he was so like the two young twins in our club!) I would certainly have seriously considered laying hands on myself.

However, you do not need to know about my nocturnal sufferings, and they are unlikely to be of any interest to you. Let me simply say that I had still not got to sleep at one in the morning.

Suddenly my attention was attracted by a terrible popping and rattling noise rapidly approaching the building. I glanced out of the window in fright and saw an outlandish three-wheeled carriage approaching the gates, moving without any horse to pull it. I could make out two figures on the high seat: one was wearing a suit of gleaming leather, a helmet and huge goggles that covered almost all his face; the other looked even stranger – he was a young Jew in a skull cap with side-locks, but also wearing immense goggles.

The man in leather climbed out of his ugly apparatus, walked up the steps on to the porch and rang the bell.

It was the Stammerer, looking very intense, pale and sombre.

‘Has something happened?’ I asked, surprised and alarmed by this nocturnal visit. This gentleman had never previously shown any interest in my person. I thought he had never even noticed that I existed. And how could he have found out where I live?

I could only assume that somehow the Stammerer had discovered that I had tried to follow him and had come to demand an explanation.

But when he spoke, it was about something completely different.

‘Maria Mironova, whom you knew under the name of Columbine, has jumped out of her window,’ the Stammerer informed me, without any greeting or apology for the late intrusion. I don’t know why I continue to call him by the nickname that I myself invented. There is no longer any point to this ludicrous trick, and in any case you know more about this man than I do. I do not know what he is really called, but in our club he was known by the strange name of Genji.

Not knowing what to say to this dismal news, I simply muttered: ‘How terrible. I hope at least she didn’t suffer before she died.’

‘Fortunately, she is still alive,’ Genji declared impassively. ‘A fantastic piece of luck. Columbine did not simply throw herself out of the window, for some reason she t-took a run and jumped – a very long way. That is what saved her. Of course, even though the side street is narrow, she could not possibly have jumped to the other side, but luckily for her, directly opposite her balcony there is an advertising sign – a tin angel. Columbine’s hem caught on the angel’s hand and she was l-left hanging there. Her dress was made of incredibly strong material – the same as my driving suit. It didn’t tear. The poor girl was stuck ten sazhens above the ground, unconscious and dangling head down, like a doll. And she was there for a long time, because no one noticed her in the dark. It was very difficult to get her down, they had to call the fire brigade to help. The young lady was taken to hospital, and when she recovered consciousness and was asked for the address of a relative, she gave them my telephone number. They phoned me and asked: “Does Mr Genji live here?”.’

I realised that he was not really speaking impassively, but making an immense effort to control his powerful agitation. The longer I listened to my late visitor, the more I wondered why he had come to me. What did he want? Genji is not the kind of man who needs someone to talk to after he has suffered some kind of shock. And in any case, I was not suited to playing the role of his confidant.

‘Have you come to me as a doctor?’ I enquired cautiously. ‘Do you want me to visit her in the hospital? But the young lady must have been examined already. And then, I am not a general practitioner, I’m an anatomist. My patients have no need of medical assistance.’

‘Miss Mironova has already been released from hospital, there is not a single scratch on her. My valet took her to my apartment, gave her hot Japanese vodka and put her to bed. Columbine will be p-perfectly all right now,’ said Genji, removing his gigantic goggles, and the gaze of his steely eyes made me feel uneasy. ‘I need you, Mr Horatio, not as a doctor, but in a different capacity. Your capacity as a collaborator.’

I raised my eyebrows in puzzlement, trying to pretend that I did not understand the term, but I turned cold inside.

‘Don’t waste your time, I saw through your cover a long time ago. You were eavesdropping on my conversation with Blagovolsky when I d-declared my purpose in joining the club. The door was slightly open and I saw a glint of light on glass through the crack. You are the only aspirant who wears spectacles. At the time, I admit, I thought you were the ubiquitous reporter Lavr Zhemailo. But the death of the journalist made it clear that I was mistaken. Then I asked my servant, with whom you are slightly acquainted, to take a look at you, and he confirmed my second hypothesis – you were the person who tried to t-trail me. On my instructions, Masa then proceeded to trail you. The gentleman in the check jacket whom you met yesterday on First Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street serves in the Gendarmes Department, does he not?’

I shuddered and asked: ‘What do you want with me? I’ve done you no harm, I swear it! The story of the “Lovers of Death” is over and done with, and the club has been disbanded.’

‘The club has been disbanded, but the story is not yet over. From the hospital I went to Columbine’s flat, and there I found this.’ Genji took a sheet of odd-looking marbled paper out of his pocket. Through the marbling I could see the words Ich warte. ‘This is the reason why Columbine jumped out of the window!’

I gazed at the paper in confusion and asked: ‘What does this mean?’

‘It means that my conclusions were erroneous because I accepted answers that were too facile and closed my eyes to a number of details and circumstances that didn’t fit the overall picture,’ Genji replied. ‘And that very nearly led to the death of a young woman whose life matters to me. You, Horatio, are going to come with me. You will be an official witness, and afterwards you will report what you have seen and heard to your gendarme b-bosses. For certain reasons that it is not necessary for you to know, I myself prefer not to meet the Moscow police. And I shall not be staying in the city for long. It would delay my record attempt.’

I did not understand the comment about a record attempt, but I decided not to ask. Still looking me in the eye, Genji added: ‘I know you are not an irredeemable scoundrel. You are simply a weak man, a victim of circumstances. Your case is not entirely hopeless. As it says in the scriptures: “Out of the weak shall come forth the strong.” Let’s go.’

His tone was peremptory and I could not resist. And, indeed, I did not wish to.

We drove to Rozhdestvensky Boulevard in the motor. I sat between Genji and his strange companion, clutching the handrail with both hands. The nightmarish device was driven by the young Jew, and on the corners, he cried out: ‘Pull, my beauties!’ We were moving so fast and jolting so hard that the only thought in my mind was how to avoid being thrown out of my seat.

Genji told the driver to stop at the corner. ‘We’ll go on from here on foot,’ he said. ‘The engine makes too much noise.’

The youth stayed to watch the auto and the two of us walked up the side street.

Despite the late hour, there was light in the windows of the familiar house.

‘The spider,’ Genji muttered, pulling off his gauntlets with immense cuffs. ‘Sitting there rubbing his feet together. Waiting for a moth to get caught in his web . . . When I have finished, you will summon the police by t-telephone. Give me your word that you will not try to detain me.’

‘I give you my word,’ I muttered obediently, although I still did not understand a thing.

The Doge opened the door to us without bothering to ask who had come to see him in the middle of the night. He was wearing a velvet dressing gown that looked like an old-fashioned caftan, with a white shirt and tie visible between the lapels. Prospero looked at us for a moment without speaking, laughed and said: ‘An interesting pair. I didn’t know that you were friends.’

I was astounded to see that he looked quite different from the way he had been at our last meeting – not pitiful and bewildered, but confident, even triumphant. Just like in the old days.

‘To what do I owe the honour of this late visit from such sullen guests?’ the Doge asked in the same derisive tone of voice, as he showed us through into the drawing room. ‘No, don’t tell me, let me guess. The suicides are continuing? The dissolution of the pernicious club has had no effect? And what did I tell you!’ He shook his head and sighed.

‘No, Mr Blagovolsky,’ Genji said in a quiet voice, ‘the c-club is no longer active. But there is just one final formality to be settled.’

Before he could say another word, the Doge leapt backwards spryly and pulled his Bulldog revolver out of his pocket. I gasped in surprise and dodged to one side.

Genji, however, was not perturbed in the slightest. He flung a heavy gauntlet into Blagovolsky’s face, at the same moment raising one foot in a brown shoe and gaiter and kicking the revolver with incredible agility.

The weapon was sent flying before it could be fired. I quickly picked it up and handed it to my companion.

‘May I consider this a confession?’ Genji asked in cold fury. His usual stammer had completely disappeared. ‘I could shoot you, Blagovolsky, this very moment, and it would be legitimate self-defence. But let us do everything according to the law.’

Prospero had turned pale and his recent scornful manner had disappeared without trace.

‘What confession?’ he muttered. ‘What law are you talking about? I don’t understand any of this. I thought you had gone insane, like Caliban, and come here to kill me. Who are you really? What do you want from me?’

‘I can see this is going to be a long conversation. Sit down,’ said Genji, pointing to a chair, ‘I knew you would try to deny everything.’

The Doge squinted warily at the revolver.

‘All right, all right. I’ll do whatever you say. But let’s go to the study. There’s a draught here and I’m feeling chilly.’

We walked through the dark dining room and sat down in the study: our host at the writing desk, Genji facing him in a huge armchair for visitors, and I at one side. The wide desk was in a state of great disorder, covered with a jumble of books with bookmarks and sheets of paper covered with writing. At the very centre there was an impressive inkstand of gleaming bronze in the form of several heroes from Russian folktales, and at one edge there was the familiar roulette wheel, which had been exiled from the drawing room and found sanctuary at the very heart of the house. No doubt the Wheel of Fortune was meant to remind our host of his days of former glory.

‘Listen carefully and remember everything,’ Genji told me, ‘so that you can present everything as clearly as possible in your report afterwards.’

Allow me to say that I took my obligations as a witness seriously. I had brought from home the pencil and notebook previously acquired on your advice. If I had not been so prudent, it would not be easy for me now to reconstruct so precisely everything that was said.

At first Blagovolsky ran his fingers nervously across the green baize of the desk, but then he made an effort to control himself, put his left hand under the desk and his right hand on the helmet of the Russian folk-hero inkwell and remained in that position.

‘Please be so good as to explain to me what all this is about, gentlemen,’ he said with dignity. ‘You would appear to be accusing me of something.’

Genji tried to turn his chair, but it proved to be too massive, and the ends of its thick legs were buried in the deep pile of a square rug that evidently must have been made to order – it was an exact fit for the chair. The Stammerer was obliged to sit in a half-turned position.

‘Yes, I accuse you of the most ignoble form of murder – driving people to commit suicide. But I also blame myself, because on two occasions I have made unforgivable mistakes. The first time was here in this very study when you artfully wove truth and falsehood together in the performance that you put on for me, pretending to be a well-intentioned innocent. The second time I allowed myself to be deceived when I mistook the devil’s tail for the devil himself.’ Genji set the Bulldog on the edge of the desk. ‘You are aware of what you are doing, your reason is sound, your actions are thoroughly planned for many moves ahead, but you are insane nonetheless. You are obsessed with power. You admitted this yourself during our previous discussion, with such convincing sincerity and such an innocent expression on your face that I allowed myself to be taken in. Ah, if only I had thought of taking a little of that liquid for analysis on the evening when you broke the goblet! I am sure it was no sleeping draught, but absolutely genuine poison. Otherwise why would you have needed to destroy the evidence? Alas, I have made too many mistakes and the price paid for them has been far too high . . .

‘I understand the mechanism of your insanity,’ Genji continued. ‘You made three attempts to die three times in your life and each time you took fright. You established the suicide club in order to redeem the guilt that you felt for having cheated Death. You threw others instead of yourself into its ravenous jaws, ransomed yourself from Death with the lives of others. How you loved to imagine yourself as the mighty magician Prospero, exalted far above ordinary mortals! I shall never forgive myself for believing your fairytale about saving lost souls. You were not trying to save anyone. On the contrary, you took a romantic passion engendered by our age of crisis – a passion that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred would have passed of its own accord – and skilfully nurtured the young shoot of a love of death. Oh, you are a very skilful gardener and there was no subterfuge that you disdained. You were very inventive in arranging the so-called “Signs”, sometimes exploiting fortuitous circumstances but usually creating them for yourself. You, Blagovolsky, are an excellent psychologist, you unerringly divined the weak spot of every one of your victims. And in addition, I have noticed that you possess considerable skill in the techniques of hypnosis.’

Oh, this was absolutely true! On numerous occasions, I myself had noted the magnetic power possessed by Prospero’s gaze, especially in the gentle illumination of the brazier or candles. I always had the feeling that those black eyes could pierce to the very deepest recesses of my soul! Hypnosis – why, naturally, hypnosis explained everything!

‘I became a member of your flock too late,’ Genji continued, ‘I do not know how you drove the photographer Sviridov and the teacher Soimonov to suicide. No doubt each of them received certain “Signs” for which you were responsible, but it is too late now to reconstruct the chain of events. Those who were to die were named by Ophelia during a spiritualist seance. You apparently had nothing to do with it. But I am no novice in such matters, and it was immediately obvious to me that there was a hypnotic connection between you and the medium – you could communicate with her without words. As the spiritualists say, she was tuned to your emanations – a single look, gesture or hint was enough for Ophelia to guess what you wanted. You could implant any thought that you wanted in her mind, the girl was no more than your mouthpiece.’

‘All very lyrical,’ said Blagovolsky, interrupting the address for the prosecution for the first time. ‘And very significant. In my opinion, Mr Genji, it is you who is insane, not I. Do you really think that the authorities will pay any attention to your fantasies?’

He had already recovered from his initial shock. He clasped his fingers together in front of him and stared intently at Genji. A strong man, I thought. It looks as if the Stammerer has met his match.

‘Write, Horatio, write,’ Genji told me. ‘Note down as much detail as possible. Every link in the chain is important here. And the evidence will follow.

‘The double suicide of Moretta and Lycanthrope went very smoothly, and once again there was no apparent criminal involvement. Acting under your hypnotic suggestion or, perhaps, on your direct instructions, Ophelia declared at the seance that a messenger in a white cloak would appear to the Chosen One that night, bringing the word. Your calculations were precisely right: the members of the club were impressionable people, mostly of a hysterical disposition. It is strange, therefore, that only two of them dreamed of a messenger in a white cloak who appeared to them that night. And then, according to the farewell verse, the stranger who appeared to the youth was severe, with black eyes, and he arrived in the usual manner, through the door, while the girl dreamed of someone with bright eyes, who preferred the window, but then who would cavil over the petty details of a mystical vision?’

‘Nonsense,’ Prospero snorted. ‘Irresponsible conjecture. Keep writing, Horatio, keep writing. If I am destined to die at the hands of this madman, let the crime not go unpunished.’

I looked at Genji in confusion, and he smiled reassuringly.

‘Don’t be concerned. We are coming to the evidence now. The first evidence was provided to me by Avaddon, who died the day before I began my investigation. The clues were still perfectly fresh and the murderer had not had time to cover his tracks.’

‘Murderer?’ I exclaimed. ‘So the student was murdered?’

‘As surely as if he had been hanged on a gallows. It began, like the previous cases, with a sentence pronounced by Ophelia under hypnosis. And the business was brought to its conclusion by Signs: the howling of a Beast or, rather, a terrifying, inhuman voice repeating something that sounded like “go, go”. The voice was heard by the neighbours next door, so it could not possibly have been a hallucination. I examined the flat very carefully and discovered something rather curious. The hinges and keyhole of the door leading to the back staircase had been oiled very thoroughly, and very recently too. I inspected the lock with a magnifying glass and discovered fresh scratches showing that it had been opened with a key several times, and always from the outside, but no key had ever been inserted in the keyhole from the inside. I could not possibly imagine that the occupant of the flat had lived with the door on to the back staircase unlocked all the time. Therefore, someone must have unlocked it, entered the flat, done something there and quickly withdrawn.

‘The next time I visited the flat I went under cover of night and conducted a more exhaustive search, hoping to discover traces of some technical device capable of producing sound. Under the upper cornice of the kitchen window I found two lead pipes like those that are used in pneumatic alarms. They were both artfully concealed under the plaster and had openings that were stopped with corks. I removed the corks, but nothing happened. I had almost decided that they be must some innovative kind of ventilation system, when a gust of wind shook the window pane, and I distinctly heard a low, hollow wail: “G-o-o-o, g-o-o-o”. In the dark gloom of the flat it was genuinely terrifying. There was no doubt at all that the sound was produced by the concealed pipes. I replaced the corks, and the wailing immediately stopped. The ancient Egyptians used to employ something rather similar in the pyramids to prevent robbers from desecrating the sarcophagi. Combinations of pipes of different forms, installed where there was a draught, could produce entire words and even phrases. You used to be an engineer, Mr Blagovolsky, and rather a talented one, I believe. It would have been easy for you to design an essentially very simple structure like this. And that explained the mystery of the back entrance. In order to drive the occupant of the flat into suicide, the intruder entered the kitchen on a wild, windy night, removed the corks from the pipes and then calmly left, quite confident of the result of his actions. I knew that you had rented and furnished the flat for the poor student. That is one. The neighbours testified that the Beast did not fall quiet until morning, although Nikifor Sipyaga hanged himself some time before dawn. That is two. Why, one wonders, would the Beast continue calling on him to leave this world when he was already in the next one? I recalled you having told me that you felt concerned about Avaddon and you set out to visit him at the crack of dawn. That was when you closed the openings in the pipes. And that is three.’

‘Well now, the pipes are genuine evidence,’ Blagovolsky admitted. ‘But the question is, against whom? Yes, I helped the poor student with his lodgings. And I was the first to find the body. Is that suspicious? Possibly. But no more than that. No, no, Mr Prince, you have not proven my guilt. Poor Avaddon was one of the incurable cases. No one could have saved him from suicide. He only needed a pretext to lay hands on himself.’

Even so, I could see that Genji’s arguments had had an effect on the Doge – he started fidgeting again and reached out to touch the bronze inkwell, as if it could help him.

Genji got up out of his chair and started walking round the room.

‘But what about Ophelia? Do you also classify her as an “incurable case”? The young girl had absolutely no desire to die, she was simply fascinated by everything mysterious and inexplicable. She really did possess abilities that modern science is unable to define and analyse. And you exploited her gift to the full. When I led the seance instead of you and summoned the spirit of Avaddon, Ophelia’s incredible sensitivity allowed her to sense or guess what I wanted. In the East they believe that powerful feelings can be preserved for a long time. A strong outpouring of positive or negative energy always leaves its mark. That is the reason why certain places are “cursed” or “blessed”. They possess a specific aura. And people like Ophelia possess the rare ability to sense this aura. As she went into her trance, the girl sensed the fear, horror and hopelessness that Avaddon felt during the final minutes of his life. Perhaps the mention of “howling” and a “beast” was simply prompted by Avaddon’s farewell poem and there was nothing mystical involved, but you were frightened. What if Ophelia, with her exceptional gifts, should happen to sense foul play? For after all, Blagovolsky, despite your cynical manipulation of human superstition, in your heart you yourself are a mystic and you believe in all sorts of dark supernatural nonsense.’

I thought I saw Prospero shudder at that point, but I cannot vouch for it. Genji sat back down in his chair.

‘Bravo,’ he said. ‘You are cautious. I deliberately left the revolver on the desk, then stood up and moved away a little, hoping that you would try to kill me. I have my trusty Herstahl in my pocket, and I would have put a hole in your head with a perfectly clear conscience, and then our pointless conversation would have been at an end.’

‘Why is it pointless?’ I asked. ‘You wish Mr Blagovolsky to be put on trial, do you not?’

‘I am afraid that trying him will do more harm than good,’ Genji sighed. ‘A sensational trial with glib speeches from eloquent advocates, an imposing defendant, a horde of reporters. What wonderful publicity for other would-be fishers of souls! The judgement of the court is hardly likely to frighten them.’

‘From what I have heard so far, only one judgement could be passed – innocent,’ Blagovolsky said with a shrug. ‘And your trap with the revolver is simply farcical. Do I look like a total dunce? You’d better get on with your story. You tell it rather well.’

Genji nodded imperturbably.

‘Indeed, let us go on. After the spiritualist seance that I led, you decided Ophelia was becoming too dangerous. What if she told someone about the hypnotic commands that you sent to her? It is not such a rare thing for a subject to break free of a hypnotist’s control. So far the girl was still only under your influence, but during the seance you saw that she submitted to the will of another controller with equal ease . . . What I could not understand was how it was possible to drive someone who had no intention at all of killing herself to commit suicide? I found the answer to this question in Ophelia’s implicit faith in supernatural phenomena, her irrational, unconditional submission to the Miraculous and, in general, the undoubtedly anomalous workings of her psyche – these were factors that the criminal could have exploited. And he only needed a few moments to put his plan into action. The girl returned home, happy and full of the joy of life, and went into her room, only to come back out almost immediately, transformed beyond all recognition. She said goodbye to her mother, walked to the bank of the river and threw herself into the water . . . There was one thing Ophelia had said that I could not get out of my mind – that she had been given a sign like the one sent to King Balthazar. And then I had an idea. I went to her house at night and cut the outer pane out of the window of her bedroom. The poor widow must have been surprised in the morning when she discovered that it had mysteriously disappeared. When I shone ultraviolet light through the glass I discovered a blurred, but perfectly legible inscription made with phosphorescent ink. This is a copy that I made of it.’

I recalled the Stammerer’s mysterious manipulations at the small house beside the Yauza. So that was what the self-appointed investigator had been doing that night!

Genji took a large sheet of paper, folded in four, out of his pocket and spread it out on the table. The inscription looked like this:

‘What’s that?’ I asked, examining the incomprehensible symbols.

He took the sheet of paper, turned it round and held it in front of the table lamp. Now I could read the letters, illuminated from behind:

Stirb²

‘When she entered her room, Ophelia saw a word written in glowing letters of fire that seemed to be floating in the air. It told her quite unambiguously to die. The Prince of Death had expressed his will quite clearly, and the poor girl did not dare oppose it. Ever since she was a child she had believed implicitly in the secret signs of destiny. Meantime . . .’ – Genji crumpled up the sheet of paper and tossed it on the desk in front of the Doge – ‘. . . you were certainly still outside, observing events. The most revolting thing about the entire story is not the murder, but the fact that when you had already condemned the girl to death, you decided to enjoy her almost childish body beforehand. You knew perfectly well that she secretly adored you, even worshipped you. You told her to stay when the other aspirants left and I presume that you demonstrated the exceptional ardour of your love – in any case, when Ophelia came home she looked absolutely happy. The nearness of death inflames your lust, does it not? You had thought everything through carefully. After sating your passion, you gallantly drove your victim home, said good night to her at the gate and then quickly wrote your fateful instruction on the bedroom window. You waited to make sure that the trick had worked, quickly wiped the window clean and then went back home. But there was one thing you failed to take into account, Sergei Irinarkhovich. The pane of glass is evidence, incontrovertible evidence.’

‘Incontrovertible evidence?’ Blagovolsky repeated with a shrug. ‘But how can you prove that I was the one who scribbled that word on the glass?’

I also thought that Genji seemed overconfident. Yes, I remembered that Prospero had told Ophelia to stay that evening and, knowing his habits, could easily imagine what had happened after that. However, that was not sufficient for a formal charge in law.

‘You are an engineer,’ Genji said to the Doge, ‘and you probably follow the progress of science. Has the discovery announced by the London police in June this year really escaped your notice?’

Blagovolsky and I both looked at the speaker in puzzlement.

‘I am referring to the Galton-Henry dactyloscopic method which makes it possible for the first time to identify a criminal from the prints left by his fingers. The finest minds in criminal investigation have been struggling for years with the problem of creating a system for classifying the papillary patterns on the tips of the fingers. The clearest prints of all are left on glass. You may have wiped off the phosphorescent letters with your handkerchief, but you did not wipe away all the prints of your fingers. I have photographs of the criminal’s dactylograms here with me. Would you compare them with your own?’

So saying, Genji took a small metal box out of the immense pocket of his leather jacket and opened it to reveal a small cushion impregnated with dark paint or ink, like those that are used for official stamps.

‘I would not,’ Prospero replied rapidly, jerking his hands away and putting them under the table. ‘You are quite right, scientific progress is constantly surprising us, and the surprises are not always pleasant ones.’

The comment was as a good as a confession!

‘When it came to the Lioness of Ecstasy, you dispensed with complicated tricks,’ said Genji, going on to the next victim. ‘This woman whose spirit was broken by grief really did long for death and she unhesitatingly accepted the appearance of three black roses on her bed as a Sign. This, as we know, was not a difficult trick to arrange.’

‘But last time you said the flowers were delivered by Caliban.’ I reminded him.

‘Yes, and that was the circumstance that led me astray. Since you have mentioned Caliban, Horatio, let us consider the real part played by this singular individual in our story. The bookkeeper confused the case very badly, he threw me off the track and diverted all suspicion from the main criminal. My mistake almost cost gullible Columbine her life.

‘You, Prospero, had good reason for favouring this madman, who had been driven insane by extreme suffering and a tormented conscience. He really was your obedient Caliban, the servant of the all-powerful wizard – a servant who was blindly and irrationally devoted to you. You praised his abominable verse, you showed him all sorts of favours and – most importantly of all – he dreamed that you would intercede for him and win the goodwill of Death, so that his “term of imprisonment” would be reduced. At first he dutifully carried out your instructions, obviously without much idea of their real significance. I assume that the concealed pipes in Avaddon’s flat were installed by Caliban – you would hardly have been able to manage such a difficult job, requiring a high level of manual skill and uncommon physical strength, and you would not have risked giving such an unusual commission to a stranger. Give three black roses to Lorelei’s domestic companion? Why not? You obviously told Papushin that you wanted to play a joke on the Lioness, whose extravagant mannerisms Caliban had always found so irritating.

‘How could I ever have believed that this burly halfwit was the evil genius of the “Lovers of Death”? How could he ever have invented the tricks with the letters of fire and the wailing beast? How right the Chinese sage was when he said “The obvious is rarely true” . . .’ Genji shook his head angrily. ‘But your faithful genie did not stay in his bottle, he escaped and started acting on his own initiative. The searing pain of his desperate desire for death became ever more excruciating. When he took his revenge on Gdlevsky, the bookkeeper ruined your entire artful plan, which was so near to realisation. Why did you need to destroy that proud, talented boy? Merely in order to flatter your own vanity? First the Russian Sappho, then the Russian Rimbaud – and both of them would take their own lives in obedience to your will. You would deprive modern Russian poetry of two of its most brilliant names, while remaining in the shadows, and you had every chance of getting away scot-free. How pitiful, compared to you, were those trivial destroyers of genius, Dantes and Martynov!

‘Or did it all happen far more simply and intuitively? A romantic youth, enthralled with his mystical theory of rhyme, happened by chance to open a book at the word “breath”, which rhymes with “death” and haughtily informed you about this miraculous Sign. The next Friday you had already made thorough preparations by leaving a book on the table, knowing that Gdlevsky would immediately grab it to tell his own fortune. I remembered the book and I took the first possible opportunity to examine it carefully.’ Genji turned towards me. ‘Horatio, if it’s not too much trouble, would you mind going to the drawing room and bringing back the collected plays of Shakespeare from the third shelf ?’

I immediately did as he asked and found the book without any difficulty. When I took it down off the shelf, I gasped: it was the same volume that Cyrano had examined on the last evening of his life!

As I walked back I turned the book this way and that, but I failed to observe anything suspicious about it. Nature, alas, did not endow me with exceptional powers of observation, as Genji confirmed when he took the volume from my hands.

‘Look at the top of the book. Do you see the yellow colour extending to the middle of the pages? That is ordinary office glue. Try opening the book at random, at any page.’

I tried opening the book between my finger and thumb and could scarcely believe my eyes – it opened at the title page of Macbeth.

‘Now do you understand?’ Genji asked me. ‘The result of Gdlevsky’s divination on the second Friday had been determined beforehand.’

Yes, the trick had been precisely calculated for psychological effect. And I suddenly realised that this was the ‘bombshell’ that Cyrano had intended to print in the morning edition of his paper. Like Genji, he had discovered the trick with the glue and immediately realised that he could season his investigation with a spicy sauce. The entire business had suddenly acquired a criminal flavour. Poor Cyrano had not suspected that he would be blown up by his own bombshell . . .

‘On the third Friday you decided to make absolutely sure of things and leave Gdlevsky no chance. After his “good luck” on the first two Fridays, the youth’s nerves were naturally so wrought up that he was seeing Signs in everything going on around him. It would not have been at all surprising if he had discovered his fateful rhyme without any assistance from you, but to guarantee the outcome you arranged for him to find what he was seeking right outside your house. You paid a wandering organ grinder to sing a song with a particular refrain – but only until a certain young man whose appearance you described in detail would enter the house. I don’t think you explained your plans to the organ grinder, but you did impress on him that once he had completed his assignment he should clear out as quickly as possible, and the old man did precisely that, with all the speed that he could muster. When I dashed out into the street two minutes later, I couldn’t find him anywhere.

‘And so Gdlevsky had been condemned to death by you and would certainly have carried out the sentence himself, if not for Caliban, who had been jealous of your young favourite for a long time. Now it seemed that Gdlevsky was favoured not only by you, but also by Death, and the insane bookkeeper decided to do away with his fortunate rival . . .

‘The killing of the reporter Lavr Zhemailo was the only death in which you were not directly involved. That is, if we do not take into account that you once called the newspaper informer a Judas, who would betray you as Christ was betrayed. To Caliban you really were his Saviour, and so when he discovered Cyrano’s true occupation, he killed him and hung him on an aspen tree.’

At that moment I must confess that I experienced a certain inner satisfaction. Not a very worthy feeling, but understandable. Apparently you do not know everything and do not notice everything, clever Mr Investigator, I thought to myself. You do not know that Caliban eavesdropped on Cyrano’s telephone conversation with his newspaper office.

Genji moved on to the final point of his prosecution speech.

‘Your preparations for Columbine’s suicide were the most thorough and cunning of all. First you slipped her the three pieces of card with inscriptions in German. The day before yesterday the young lady gave them to me and told me that they did not burn in fire. I subjected the paper to chemical analysis and discovered it had been impregnated with a solution of alums, which had rendered it non-flammable. An old trick that was once used by the Count of St Germain. In order to prompt Columbine to check whether the notes would burn, you deliberately slipped Papushin a note from Death as well, only it was written on ordinary paper. The scheme worked perfectly, but there was one thing you failed to anticipate – Caliban felt slighted and decided to take his revenge on Death’s Chosen One, just as he had done with Gdlevsky. Fortunately I happened to be at the scene.’

I noticed that Blagovolsky’s behaviour had changed now. The Doge was no longer objecting or trying to dispute any of his accuser’s assertions. He sat there hunched up, with his face completely drained of blood and his eyes – I could see that they were filled with fear and alarm – trained steadily on the speaker. Prospero must have felt that the end was approaching. His nervous state was also evident from the movements of his hands: the fingers of his right hand were stroking the bronze hero’s helmet again, while the fingers of his left clenched and unclenched spasmodically.

‘Fate gave you a generous gift in the person of Caliban. You had a very good chance of getting away with everything by shifting the blame for all your crimes on to the dead maniac’s shoulders. But you were unable to control yourself, you could not stop. Why did you decide to finish the girl off after all? That is the greatest riddle for me. Could you not forgive Columbine because she had grown indifferent to your charms? Or, as happens so often with hardened killers, did you really, somewhere deep in your heart, want someone to expose you and stop you?’

‘No, Mr Psychologist,’ said Prospero, suddenly breaking his silence. ‘It was neither of those. I simply do not like to abandon a job halfway through when it is going well.’

I immediately took down what he had said word for word: another indirect admission of guilt.

Genji’s face darkened slightly; he was evidently taken aback by this audacious reply.

‘Your attempt to finish your “job” was certainly most inventive. Columbine told me about the magical words “Ich warte” that appeared out of nowhere on a blank sheet of paper. Most impressive! It is hardly surprising that the girl immediately believed implicitly that it was a miracle. I visited Columbine’s flat and inspected both the sheet of paper and the book very closely. Another cunning chemical trick. Several pages before the bookmark you had glued into the book a piece of paper with the two fateful words written on it in lead acetate. And the marbled paper used as a bookmark had been soaked in a solution of sulphurated potash. When the book was closed, the lead acetate started seeping through the pages and about a day later the letters appeared on the marbled paper. This method of secret writing was developed by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century, so it is not original to you. You merely found a new use for the old recipe.’

Genji turned towards me and leaned on the armrest of his chair.

‘That is all, Horatio, the facts have been set forth. As for the material evidence, the window pane with the dactylograms is under guard in the porter’s lodge of the Spassky Barracks, the pipes in Avaddon’s flat are still in place, and I left the book from Blagovolsky’s library and the sheet of marbled paper in Columbine’s flat. No doubt the sheet of paper glued into the book and the sheet that was soaked in potash also bear the criminal’s fingerprints. The investigation should not encounter any difficulties. There is the telephone – make the call. As soon as the police arrive I shall withdraw, and you remember that you gave me your word.’

I stood up to walk across to the telephone hanging on the wall, but Blagovolsky gestured for me to wait.

‘Don’t be in such a hurry, Horatio. The gentleman detective has demonstrated his eloquence and perspicacity. It is only fair that I should have the right of reply.’

I glanced enquiringly at Genji. He nodded, with a wary glance at Prospero, and I sat down again.

Blagovolsky chuckled, opened the helmet lid of the inkwell and closed it again, then drummed his fingers on it.

‘You have unfolded an entire psychological theory that presents me as a cowardly halfwit. According to you, everything I have done can be explained by panic induced by fear of death; an attempt to wheedle a respite out of death by offering up human sacrifices. Nonsense, Mr Genji. Why underestimate and belittle your opponent? At the very least that is imprudent. Perhaps I was once afraid to die, but that was a very, very long time ago, before the stone walls of a prison cell exterminated all strong feelings and passions in me. Apart from one that is, the most exalted of all – the desire to be God. A long period of solitary confinement brings home very clearly the simple truth that you are alone in the world and the entire universe is in you, and so you are God. If you so wish, the universe will live. If you do not, it will die, with everything that it contains. That is what will happen if I, God, commit suicide. In comparison with this catastrophe, all other deaths are mere trifles. But if I am God, then I must rule, must I not? That is only logical, it is my right. My rule must be real and undivided. And do you know what God’s real power over people is? It is not a general’s epaulettes, a minister’s portfolio, or even a king’s throne. In our times dominion of that kind is becoming an anachronism. It will not be enough for the rulers of the new century that is beginning. There must be power, not over bodies, but over souls. Say to someone else’s soul, “Die!” – and it dies. As it was with the Old Believers, when hundreds threw themselves into the fire if the elder willed it, and mothers cast their infants into the flames. But the elder left the burning community and went to save another flock. You, Mr Genji, are a limited man and you will never understand this supreme pleasure . . . Ah, why am I wasting time on you? To hell with you, you bore me.’

After pronouncing the last two phrases in a rapid flurry of speech, Prospero suddenly cut his speech short. He turned the bronze inkwell figure clockwise, there was a loud metallic clang and a hatch opened under the chair on which Genji was sitting, creating a hole the precise size of the square rug. The rug, the chair and the man sitting in it disappeared into the black hole.

I shouted out in horror, with my eyes fixed on that opening in the floor.

‘Another of my engineering designs!’ Prospero exclaimed, choking on fitful laughter. ‘The most ingenious one of all!’ he waved his hand in the air, unable to cope with his paroxysm of merriment. ‘There sits the pompous fellow, the master of life. And then a turn of a lever, releasing a spring and bang! Please be so good as to fall down my well-shaft.’

Wiping away his tears, he told me: ‘You know, my friend Horatio, last year I got the idea of deepening the basement. When the workers started digging they discovered an old brick-lined well. Very deep, almost thirty sazhens. I told them to build the shaft upwards with bricks so that it reached the floor at this point. And then I built the hatch on the top myself. I like to do a bit of work with my hands in my spare time, it helps me to relax. The late Mr Genji was mistaken in thinking that I was shy of physical work – I built the voice imitator in Avaddon’s flat myself. But I installed this secret hatch for amusement, not for use. I would sit here with a visitor, talking about this and that. With him in the place of honour in the armchair, and me at the desk, toying with the lever. And I would think to myself: “Your life, my little pigeon, is in my hands. Just a little turn, and you’ll disappear from the face of the earth. It’s very helpful for your self-respect, especially if the visitor is haughty and pompous, like our Japanese prince who has just met such an untimely end. I never thought that my little toy would come in so useful.’

I sat there turned to stone, listening to this bloodcurdling speech, and feeling more afraid with every moment. I had to run, to get away from there immediately! He would never let me go alive – he would throw me down the well too.

I was about to make a dash for the door, but then my eye fell on the Bulldog, still lying on the edge of the desk. Prospero would grab the gun and shoot me in the back.

Well then, I had to get the gun myself!

The desperate nature of the situation lent me courage. I jumped up and reached for the gun, but Blagovolsky proved quicker and my fingers landed on his hand, which was already covering the revolver. A moment later we were struggling with each other, both clutching the gun with both hands. Taking small steps, we skirted round the table and then started jigging on the spot, as if we were performing some macabre dance.

I kicked at him and he kicked back, hitting me on the ankle. It was very painful, but I didn’t open my fingers. I jerked the gun towards me with all my strength and we both lost our balance and went tumbling to the floor. The Bulldog slipped out of our hands, slid across the gleaming parquet floor and stopped halfway over the edge of the hatch, swaying uncertainly. I scrambled towards it on my hands and knees, but I was too late. As if it had finally made up its mind, it tumbled over the edge.

A few dull thuds, growing fainter. Then silence.

Taking advantage of the fact that I had my back to him, Prospero grabbed me by the collar with one hand and by my coat-tail with the other and started dragging me across the floor towards the pit. Another second and it would all have been over, but by good fortune my fingers struck the leg of the desk and I clung to it with a grip of iron. My head was already hanging over the hole, but Blagovolsky could not move me another inch, no matter how he tried.

I was straining every muscle so hard that it was a while before I looked down into the hole – and in any case my eyes needed time to adjust to the darkness. The first thing I saw in the gloom was a vague rectangular shape that I only recognised a few seconds later as the chair, turned on its side – it had got stuck in the shaft, after falling less than a sazhen. And then I noticed two white spots below the chair. They were moving, and I suddenly realised that they were white shirt cuffs protruding from Genji’s leather sleeves! I couldn’t see his hands, but the starched cuffs were clearly visible through the darkness. So Genji had not gone plunging to the bottom, he had managed to grab hold of the chair when it got stuck!

This discovery emboldened me, although there did not really seem to be any real reason to rejoice: if Genji was not helped, he could only hold out like that for two or three minutes, and then he would fall in any case. And who was going to help him? Certainly not Blagovolsky!

Thank God, the Doge couldn’t see into the hole, and he had no idea that his main adversary was still alive, although quite helpless.

‘Horatio, do you play chess?’ Prospero’s faltering voice gasped behind me.

I thought I must have misheard.

‘In chess this kind of situation is called a stalemate,’ he went on. ‘Unfortunately, I am not strong enough to shove you into the well, and you cannot let go of the leg of the desk. Are we going to go on lying on the floor like this for ever? I have a better suggestion. Since force has not produced the desired result, let us return to a state of civilisation. By which I mean, let us negotiate.’

He stopped pulling on my collar and stood up. I also hastily jumped to my feet and moved as far away as possible from the hatch.

Both of us looked very much the worse for wear. Blagovolsky’s tie had slipped to one side, his grey hair was dishevelled and the belt of his dressing gown had come untied; I was no better, with a torn sleeve and missing buttons, and when I picked up my spectacles, I discovered that the right lens was cracked.

I was completely bewildered and did not know what to do. Run out into the street to get the police constable standing on Trubnaya Square? It would be ten minutes before I got back. Genji could not hold on for that long. I glanced involuntarily at the hole in the floor.

‘You’re right,’ said Blagovolsky, tying up his dressing gown. ‘That gap in the floor is distracting.’

He took a step forwards and turned the bronze figure anti-clockwise. The cover of the hatch slammed shut with a clang, making things even worse! Genji had been left in total darkness.

‘Now there are just the two of us, you and I,’ said Prospero. He looked into my eyes, and I felt the familiar magnetic influence of his gaze enveloping me and drawing me in. ‘Before you make any decision, I want you to listen carefully to your own heart. Do not make a mistake that you will regret for the rest of your life. Listen to me, look at me, trust me. The way you used to trust me, before this outsider invaded our world and spoiled and perverted everything . . .’

The sound of his clear baritone voice flowed on and on, until I no longer understood the meaning of the words. I realise now that Prospero had put me under his hypnotic influence, and very successfully too. I am highly suggestible and easily submit to the will of a stronger person, as you know very well from your own experience. And in addition, it is in my nature to take pleasure in my subservience – it is as if I dissolve into the personality of the other individual. While Genji was with me, I obeyed him unquestioningly, but now I was in the power of the Doge’s black eyes and mesmerising voice. I write about this bitterly, but soberly, in the full awareness of the more shameful aspects of my own nature.

It took very little time for Blagovolsky to transform me into a mesmerised rabbit, unable to move in the gaze of the python.

‘The superfluous third party is no longer with us, no one will disturb us,’ said the Doge, ‘and I shall tell you how everything really was. You are intelligent, you will be able to distinguish the truth from lies. But first you and I will have a drink – for the peace of the uninspired soul of Mr Genji. And in accordance with Russian tradition, let us drink vodka.’

And so saying, he walked into the corner, where there was a huge carved wooden cupboard standing in a niche. He opened its doors and I saw large bottles, carafes and goblets.

Now that I no longer felt his spellbinding stare on me, my mind seemed to awaken and start working again. I looked at the clock on the wall and saw that less than five minutes had gone by. Perhaps Genji was still holding on! However, before I could come to any decision, Blagovolsky came back to the desk and trained his black eyes on me, and once again I was overcome by a blissful apathy. I was no longer thinking about anything, only listening to the sound of his masterful voice. We were standing on opposite sides of the desk. The disgraced roulette wheel was between us and its nickel-plated rays glinted and sparkled.

‘Here are two glasses,’ said the Doge, ‘I don’t usually drink vodka – I have a sick liver, but after a shock like that I could do with a pick-me-up. Here.’

He set the glass on one of the pockets of the Wheel of Fortune (I remember it was a black one), gently pushed a little lever, and the crystal vessel described a semicircle as it slowly moved towards me. Prospero halted the roulette wheel and set the second glass down on another black pocket in front of him.

‘You will trust me and only me,’ the Doge said, speaking slowly and ponderously. ‘I am the only one who sees and understands the workings of your soul. You, Horatio, are not a man, but half a man. That is why you need to seek out your other half. You have found it. I am your other half. We shall be like a single whole, and you will be calm and happy . . .’

Just at that moment there was a sharp cracking sound from under the floor and we both shuddered and turned to look. One of the parquet blocks on the door of the secret hatch had split in half and there was a small round black hole in the middle of the crack.

‘What the devil . . .’ Prospero began, but then there was another bang, and then another – five or six in all.

Several more holes appeared beside the first. Chips of wood were sent flying, two parquet blocks jumped out of the floor, and white crumbs of plaster showered down from the ceiling. I guessed that Genji must be firing into the cover of the hatch. But what for? How would that help him?

I soon found out. There were several dull blows against the underside of the hatch: one, two, three. And then, on the fourth blow, several parquet blocks stood up on end and I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw a fist emerge from the hole. It was incredible, but Genji had managed to punch through the cover of the hatch with his bare hand – at the spot where the bullets had made holes in it!

The fist opened, the fingers grasped the edge of the hole that had been made and began pulling the cover down, overcoming the resistance of the spring.

‘He’s the devil himself!’ Prospero exclaimed, flinging himself across the desk on his stomach and seizing the inkwell.

I had no chance to stop him. Blagovolsky turned the heroic folklore figure and the hatch swung shut. I heard a groan and a dull blow, and a moment later an ominous rumbling sound receding into the distance.

The impact of the Doge’s sudden movement shook the desk: the roulette wheel trembled and turned through another half-circle. A few drops of vodka splashed out of the glasses into the pockets of the wheel.

‘Ooph,’ Prospero exclaimed in relief. ‘What a persistent gentleman. And all because we didn’t drink in time for the peace of his soul. Drink it down, Horatio, drain your glass. Or else he’ll climb back out again. Come on!’

The Doge knitted his brows menacingly and I meekly picked up my vodka.

‘We drink on one, two, three,’ Blagovolsky told me. ‘And damn my sick liver. One, two, three!’

I tipped back the glass and almost choked as the fiery liquid seared my throat. I should say that I am no lover of the Russian national beverage and usually prefer Moselle or Rheinwein.

When I wiped away the tears that had sprung to my eyes, I was astounded by the change that had come over Blagovolsky. He was standing absolutely still, clutching his throat with one hand, and his eyes were staring out of his head. I am unable to describe the expression of boundless horror that contorted the Doge’s face. He wheezed, tore at his collar and doubled over.

I couldn’t understand a thing, and events began following each other so rapidly that I could barely turn my head fast enough.

First there was a knocking sound and when I looked round I saw a hand grab the edge of the hatch. Then a second hand did the same, and a moment later Genji’s head appeared out of the hole – his hair was dishevelled and his scowling forehead was covered with scratches. A few moments later this amazing man had already climbed out and was brushing the white dust off his elbows.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Genji asked, wiping his grazed and bloody fingers with a handkerchief.

The question referred to the Doge, who was rolling about on the floor and howling desperately. He kept trying to get to his feet, but could not.

‘He drank some vodka, and he has a sick liver,’ I explained stupidly, still not recovered from my stupor.

Genji stepped across to the desk. He picked up my glass, sniffed it and put it down again. Then he leaned down to the roulette wheel and looked at the spot where Blagovolsky’s glass had stood. I saw that the spilled drops of vodka had left strange white marks on the black pocket.

Genji bent over, looked at Prospero writhing convulsively on the floor and remarked in a low voice: ‘It looks like “royal vodka”, a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid. It must have completely burned away his oesophagus and stomach. What a terrible way to die!’

I started shaking when I realised that the villainous Prospero had intended the poison for me, and only a lucky chance – the jolt that had turned the Wheel of Fortune – had saved me from a hideous fate.

‘Let’s go, Horatio,’ said Genji, tugging on my sleeve. ‘There’s nothing more for us to do here. The unfortunate Radishchev d-died in exactly the same way. There is no way to save Blagovolsky. And no way to ease his suffering either – except by shooting him. But I shall not render him that service. Let’s go.’

He walked towards the door and I hurried after him, leaving the dying man howling in agony behind us.

‘But . . . but how did you manage to climb out of the well? And then, when Blagovolsky closed the hatch again, I distinctly heard a rumbling sound. Didn’t you fall?’ I asked.

‘It was the chair I was standing on that fell,’ Genji replied, pulling on his massive gauntlets. ‘I shall miss my Herstahl very badly. It was an excellent revolver. You can’t b-buy them anywhere, they have to be ordered from Brussels. Of course, I could climb down the well and look for it on the bottom, but I really don’t feel like going back into that hole. Br-r-r!’

He shuddered, and so did I.

‘Wait about a quarter of an hour and then phone the p-police,’ he said when we parted.

As soon as he was gone, an unexpected thought struck me like a bolt of lightning. The Doge of the suicide club killed himself! There’s higher justice for you! So God does exist!

This idea now occupies my mind more and more. I am even willing to concede that all the shocking events of the recent past had only one purpose: to bring me to this revelation. Ah yes, but that is no concern of yours. I have already written far more than necessary for an official document.

In summary of the above, I testify on my own responsibility that everything happened as I have described it.

Sergei Irinarkhovich Blagovolsky was not killed by anyone. He died by his own hand.

And now goodbye.

With every assurance of my most sincere disrespect,

F.F. Weltman, doctor of medicine

P.S. I considered it my duty to inform Mr Genji of the interest shown in him by yourself and the ‘highly placed individual’ of your acquaintance. He was not in the least surprised and asked me to tell you and the ‘highly placed individual’ not to trouble yourselves with any further searches or attempts to cause him any unpleasantness, since tomorrow (that is, in fact, today) at noon he is leaving the city of Moscow and his God-fearing homeland and taking his friends with him.

It was for this reason – in order to give Mr Genji time to travel beyond the bounds of your jurisdiction – that I did not telephone the police from the scene of last night’s events, but waited for the whole day and am sending you this letter in the evening, not by courier, but via the ordinary post.

Genji is not at all like Isaiah, but his prophecy concerning me appears to have come true: the strong has come forth out of the weak.

1. I’m waiting

2. Die (German)