‘How is Seryozha?’
‘Prince Sergei Nikolaevich is naturally devastated by the death of his fiancee under such … shocking circumstances.’
‘Naturally. And yet …’ Bakhmutov put a hand to his neatly trimmed beard. ‘He knew what he was … exposing himself to. He knew the history. It was a brave man who took that on. Or a fool.’
‘You dare to call my son a fool!’
‘No no no! You misunderstand me. He was not the fool. Mizinchikov was the fool. Your son’s actions betokened great nobility of soul.’
Prince Naryskin did not see the smile that accompanied this soaring eulogy. He stared in silence at the dancing flames.
‘Tell me.’ A cold, wheedling note had entered Bakhmutov’s voice. ‘Did your son know … everything? Did he know about your …?’
‘Of course not.’ In the transmutations of the fire, Prince Nikolai saw again the eager flare of orange that had consumed her letters. ‘And he will never know. What do you take me for?’
‘And now — if he discovered the truth now?’
‘It would destroy him.’
‘But a man … could it not be argued, has a right to know the truth, in a general, philosophical way of speaking?’
Prince Naryskin turned on Bakhmutov. ‘So! That’s what this is about! You’ve come to blackmail me.’ The fury suddenly fell from his face, to be replaced by a bitter despair. His voice cracked. ‘What could I have that you would want? I’m in your pocket as it is!’
‘Once again, you misunderstand me, Nikolai Sergeevich. I am with you in this. We are as one. Seryozha must never find out. This affair is hard enough for him to bear as it is.’ Ivan Iakovich Bakhmutov drew himself up, and puffed out his chest. He articulated his next words slowly, with an almost sadistic clarity. ‘If he found out that his father had once been his dead fiancee’s lover, who knows what it might do to him?’
‘Be quiet!’ Prince Nikolai narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Bakhmutov. ‘What are you up to, you snake?’
‘I want — if I may be said to want anything — I want to be your friend.’
Prince Nikolai gave a grimace of pain. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It is simple. I will be your friend. And you — in return — will be my friend.’ Bakhmutov’s tone suddenly hardened. ‘There will be no more of this “Snake!”, no more of this “Jew!”, no more of this contempt. You will acknowledge me as your friend. As your equal.’
‘You don’t know what you ask.’
‘I know what I give. A friend would never betray a confidence. But a man who is not your friend, a man whom you have made your enemy — who can say what such a man might do?’
Prince Nikolai looked Bakhmutov up and down, as if considering him for the first time. A smile curled on Bakhmutov’s lips, which was not mirrored on the prince’s.
Bakhmutov held out his hand. ‘Come now, friend.’
At last the prince raised his own hand, stiffly, slowly, as if he were lifting a tremendous weight. Bakhmutov seized the hand with the one he had extended, while his other arm stretched possessively around Prince Nikolai’s shoulder, pulling him to him. His smile now was one of satisfaction.
*
On the other side of the ornately moulded double doors of the red drawing room, Prince Sergei Nikolaevich Naryskin snatched his hand back from the gold handle as if it had suddenly grown white hot. But the handle was only a little warm, no warmer than the palm of his hand. Admittedly, his palm was drenched in sweat, and that sweat, he saw, had dimmed the lustre of the metal.
He looked at his hand and then looked back at the tarnished door handle, as if he had lost something precious in the contact of flesh and gold.
*
All the available resources of the St Petersburg police force were mobilised in the hunt for Captain Mizinchikov, but to no avail. A watch was kept on his apartment, and his known friends and associates were monitored, including fellow officers of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. An interview with the suspect’s father confirmed Bakhmutov’s assessment of the relationship between father and son. As far as General Mizinchikov — a thin, scooped-out man who smelled of cloves — was concerned, his son could ‘go to the devil’, and if he had already, it was a source of neither surprise nor regret to him. He assured Porfiry that he would waste no time in notifying the authorities, should he hear from his son. His eyes as he made this promise were cold and steady, suspiciously guarding even the pain over which he held himself hunched. Porfiry recognised the miser’s ruthlessness; and the miser’s gift for cherishing bitterness. He did not doubt that General Mizinchikov would be as good as his word. He felt a stirring of sympathy for the fugitive.
‘You have a nephew in Moscow, I believe.’
‘I have several nephews, in Moscow and elsewhere. Not to mention nieces. My sisters were notoriously fecund.’
‘I would be grateful if you could supply us with the names and addresses of these family members, so that we may extend our enquiries to include them.’
‘I shall do better than that. I shall write to them all, commanding them to deny quarter to the criminal. If they wish to expect anything from me, they will follow my example and summon the police the instant he presents himself.’
‘I … am grateful to you. Even so, I would appreciate the names and addresses. And if there is one cousin to whom Konstantin Denisevich is particularly close, perhaps you could indicate that on your list.’
‘Ah, that would be Alexei Ivanovich,’ said General Mizinchikov, after a moment’s reflection. ‘Those two have been firm friends from childhood, though two more opposite characters, it is difficult to imagine. Alyosha is thoughtful, sober, considerate … What he sees in my reprobate son, I cannot imagine.’
‘You have only the one son?’
‘Regrettably, my first born son died in infancy.’
‘I’m sorry. And no daughters?’
‘No. And now I consider myself to have no son either.’
Porfiry was taken aback by the force with which the general made this assertion. ‘Do you not have any residue of fatherly feeling towards Konstantin Denisevich? After all, we do not know for certain that he is this woman’s murderer.’
‘He has deserted his regiment. And brought dishonour on the family name. If he did not kill her, he should have stayed to make his case. He can expect nothing from me.’
‘You will disinherit him?’
‘He has forced me to it.’
‘May I ask in whose favour you will change your will?’
‘It will go to the oldest of my nephews, Alexei Ivanovich.’
‘I see. Now, sir, if I may trouble you for the list. It will help us greatly if we are able to take it away with us.’
*
‘There is a murder waiting to happen,’ said Porfiry carelessly, as they descended the gloomy staircase of the Gorokhovaya Street apartment house.
‘Are you serious?’ said Virginsky.
‘Either that or he is the greatest argument for Captain Mizinchikov’s innocence.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘If Mizinchikov really is a murderer, then why he has not long ago dispatched such a father must surely baffle us. It can only be because he has not yet got round to it. Even such placid and indisputably loving sons as you and I, whose fathers are — or were — by comparison paragons of paternal virtue, even we must have felt at times the provocation to parricide. What son has not? How much more strongly must a man in whom the homicidal propensity is already awakened feel it?’
‘I wonder that you can be so flippant, given what you have said about the circumstances of your father’s death.’
They reached the ground floor and stepped out into the drizzle-soaked gloom. ‘I did not kill my father, if that’s what you mean.’
‘I did not mean to suggest that you had.’
Porfiry said nothing. They stood on the front steps considering the bleak prospect before them without enthusiasm. The mist seemed to sap their will to action. Porfiry’s voice came thickly, his words directed to the mist: ‘My father was a good man. In many ways, an extraordinary man. He had a gift. I think I told you that he was a mining engineer. His gift, however, had nothing to do with that, and in many ways stood at odds with his professional outlook, which you could describe as highly rational. He was an exemplary scientist, except in one particular.’