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)