‘I did not take you for a man too much concerned with his own appearance, Porfiry Petrovich,’ remarked Virginsky with a sly smile.
‘Oh, it is not on my own account, you understand,’ threw out Porfiry casually, bending forward to scrutinise something on the surface of the mirror.
‘Not on your own account? Do you mean to say-?’
‘I wonder what that is,’ murmured Porfiry absently, before turning his back on his own reflection. Virginsky took his superior’s place before the mirror and frowned as he scanned its surface, looking for whatever had caught Porfiry’s eye.
‘What do you think he meant by it?’ said Porfiry, opening one of the wardrobe doors. The sight of the discarded clothes, still exactly as before, reminded him that he had already looked inside. He sniffed the air in the wardrobe suspiciously, then closed the door and prowled the room like a caged animal.
‘Who? By what?’ Virginsky reluctantly gave up his examination of the mirror to keep a watchful eye on Porfiry.
‘M. By giving her camellias. White camellias.’
‘Some ladies like white, others prefer red.’
‘There is a special significance to the red ones, I believe.’
‘Yes, but that is a signal for the ladies to give to their admirers.’
Virginsky’s remark drew Porfiry up sharply. He looked down at the card. ‘Brilliant, Pavel Pavlovich. Quite brilliant.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Could not the card equally be read as being addressed to M, as from him? Could it not be her protestation of undying love to him?’
‘Possibly.’
‘As well as an advertisement of her sexual availability. Ironic, is it not? She announced herself free from menstrual blood, only to be drenched in fatal blood.’ Porfiry caught a knot of uncertainty tightening Virginsky’s brows. ‘You’re not convinced? But it was your idea.’
‘I cannot honestly take credit for it.’
‘The original dame aux camelias was a prostitute, was she not?’
‘A courtesan.’
‘A high-class prostitute. But a prostitute nonetheless. Perhaps that was the significance of the flowers, if they were as we originally thought, a gift from M to her: you are a whore but I will always love you.’
‘You think the flowers are important?’
‘I think the flowers are here. In the same room as a dead girl. What was she? Some kind of actress?’
‘No, not really. This was an amateur affair.’ Virginsky paused a moment before going on with uncharacteristic diffidence: ‘Porfiry Petrovich … Maria Petrovna is here.’
‘Maria Petrovna? The charming young lady whom I met yesterday?’
‘Yes.’
‘What a remarkable coincidence.’
‘I do not like to hear you say that, Porfiry Petrovich. I know you do not believe in coincidence.’
Porfiry said nothing.
‘However, it is not so strange,’ Virginsky went on. ‘This evening was organised as a benefit gala for her school.’
‘I see.’
‘Prince Naryskin — the Naryskin family — is one of those connections she has made through her father.’
‘And what of Yelena Filippovna?’
‘What of her?’
‘Did Maria Petrovna know her?’
‘Yes. I believe so. They were at school together. At the Sm-’
‘Smolny Institute,’ finished Porfiry. ‘How very interesting.’
‘You do not think Maria Petrovna had anything to do with this?’
‘Do I not?’ Porfiry Petrovich met Virginsky’s anxious expression with a bland face and much blinking.
‘Will you wish to speak to her?’
‘I hope that I will have that pleasure before too long.’
‘She is very tired. She has already given a full statement to me.’
Porfiry Petrovich gave no answer to this, or none that Virginsky could understand. He merely rubbed the tops of both ears now with the tips of his index fingers while staring blankly into his junior colleague’s face.
*
Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky knew better than to press the point. He had been working with Porfiry Petrovich for a little over two years now and had become as skilled at divining his superior’s moods as at executing any of his more formal duties as a junior investigating magistrate. He knew that Porfiry Petrovich’s famous capriciousness was an essential part of the mysterious process by which he solved his cases. To attempt to curtail his eccentricity would be futile; as inconceivable as forbidding Porfiry his cigarettes. Certainly it was infuriating, as a colleague, to be on the receiving end of the old man’s puckish behaviour. He really ought to be able to confine such tricks to his dealings with suspects and, at a pinch, witnesses; regrettably he was not. At first it had amazed Virginsky how willing others in the department, including otherwise hardline police officers, were to tolerate Porfiry’s individualism, which, he had noticed, had become more extreme over time. Perhaps there were those who were only waiting for the celebrated investigator to fail. And then all the resentments that had built up over the years, the procedural irregularities, the wounded dignities, the nurtured humiliations, not to mention the ill-judged pranks — all this would be remembered and used against him. His downfall would be swift and irrevocable, Virginsky feared. Everything was permitted, or certainly a lot was overlooked, so long as Porfiry’s record as an investigator remained impeccable. Virginsky wondered how many failures it would take before the tide turned against him and the chorus of his enemies was heard to cry: ‘You have gone too far this time, Porfiry Petrovich.’
Virginsky watched as the subject of his thoughts with a loud groan lowered his rotund form into a squat beside the dead woman.
‘I’m getting too old for this, Pavel Pavlovich.’
Virginsky was startled by the pronouncement, which seemed uncannily in tune with what he had been thinking.
Porfiry grunted as he re-arranged his legs. The difficulty of the manoeuvre provoked a fit of giggles which, given the proximity of a corpse, struck Virginsky as shockingly inappropriate.
‘Yes, this is not the occupation for an old man.’
‘You are not old, Porfiry Petrovich.’
‘Nonsense. I am old. And getting older. I am staring retirement in the face. Perhaps I should get out sooner rather than later, while my reputation is still intact. Why, whatever is the matter, Pavel Pavlovich?’
‘It is nothing … I … I was only wondering … How do you do it, Porfiry Petrovich?’
‘How do I do what?’
‘It seems almost, sometimes, as though you are able to read minds.’
‘So you were thinking that I am over the hill?’
‘No, not exactly. I was thinking that you have had a long and singularly successful career as an investigator.’
‘Diplomatically put, but it amounts to the same thing. I am yesterday’s man. While you are tomorrow’s. Besides, I have had my share of failure, although I do not look upon it as such. Even failure serves a purpose. We learn from it.’ Porfiry Petrovich bent over the dead woman, almost pressing his face into the gash at her throat. ‘Damn these tired eyes. Look at me. I have to get so close to see in focus. Of course in so doing I block out the light.’
‘Perhaps you should consider spectacles.’
‘I am not a vain man, Pavel Pavlovich. However, I do not think that spectacles will create the right impression.’
‘But surely it is more a question of practicality than image?’
‘In this occupation, the two are more closely related than you imagine.’ Porfiry was now engaged in moving his head along the dead woman’s torso, rocking side to side from his pelvis in a mechanical linear motion.
‘What about a magnifying glass?’
‘I prefer to have nothing between my eye and the object I am observing. The curvature of a lens distorts reality. The surface distracts us with its glints and motes. Ah, now, when one is looking with the naked eye, however old and defective, one finds things like this!’ Porfiry pinched at the dead woman’s dress and lifted his hand away. Virginsky could see a fine trail of red drawn trembling through the air.