“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.”
A NIGHT OF HORROR
Dedicated to my friend N. N., gravedigger
Jim Undertaker grew pale as he turned down the lights a little, and began to tell his story in a very excited voice: “It was dark, a completely dark, chilly and spooky night. I was covered with fog as I walked home after visiting my sick friend. You know who I mean, for he died just recently. On that night, of course, he was still alive, and the whole company had visited him, as we held a spiritualistic séance at his house. Afterward, I crept along the narrow, unlit streets, trying to make my way through the fog. At that time, I lived in the heart of Moscow, next to Old Graves Street. I rented an apartment in the house of Mr. Deadman. It was situated in one of the remotest and darkest lanes, next to the downtown Arbat Street. I felt anxious and depressed while I walked along those dark and gloomy streets.
“ ‘Your life will be over soon. The time has come to repent!’ This was the message told to me by Spinoza, the ancient philosopher, whose spirit we had managed to contact and engage in conversation. I asked him to repeat this to me once again, and to explain what it meant, but the spirit just added a few words, ‘It will happen this night.’
“Now, I do not believe in spirits and spiritualism, but thoughts about my death, even any hints about it, always upset and depressed me.
“Dear ladies and gentlemen! We all know that death in inevitable, for it is a part of our life, but at the same time it is unpleasant to contemplate your own demise.
“And so, on that night I was completely surrounded by the dark, cold fog. The wind howled above my head. I met no one as I walked along, and an unexplainable fear soon filled my soul. I am a man without prejudice, but that night I was walking fast, looking only straight ahead. I dared not glance beside or behind, for I feared that I would see Death itself, walking behind me as a ghost.”
At this point, Mr. Undertaker made a deep sigh, drank some water, and continued:
“My feelings of dread and horror did not leave me when I reached the fourth floor of Mr. Deadman’s house, opened the door, and entered my modest apartment. It was completely dark. A sudden wind arose outside, beginning to howl and cry in the chimneys of my fireplace, as if trying to come inside.