“I went to Fräulein Keller’s,” he began. The color flooded her face. “She told me you’d come into money. She says you’ve found a rich protector. A new boyfriend.”
Lilya shook her head hotly. “Fräulein Keller can only see things through her own eyes.”
“That’s true enough,” said Porfiry, with a half laugh. But then his face became serious as he remembered the depths he had sunk to in order to get information out of the madam. “But Lilya, I look at all this, I look at your dress, at Vera’s toys. When I saw you at the police bureau, you were dressed in hand-me-down rags.”
“I wore what I needed to wear.”
“Yes, of course. But tell me, where did all this come from?”
“Zoya found…some money. That’s all.”
Porfiry noticed the hesitation and frowned skeptically. “She was indeed lucky. But I wonder, did she not think it might belong to someone?”
“You’ve never been poor. You’ve never known what it’s like.”
“I am not here to investigate or judge Zoya Nikolaevna.”
“Why are you here?” It was the same question Raya had asked him at Fräulein Keller’s.
“You know the student Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky.” It was a statement, not a question.
Lilya stared at his strange, colorless lashes. “Yes.”
“We are currently holding him in connection with a possible crime.”
She gave an inarticulate sob of protest. Her eyes questioned and challenged him.
“Anything you can say in answer to my questions will help him.”
“You don’t believe he…”
“I don’t believe he what?”
“Is it to do with Goryanchikov?”
“You know about Goryanchikov?”
“Pavel Pavlovich told me. And…”
“And what?”
Lilya could not meet his flickering eyelashes. She looked away to answer: “Zoya found him. She found him and another man. Dead. In Petrovsky Park.”
“She has a habit of finding things, your Zoya.”
“The money, she found the money there too. It was on the other man. In his pocket.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know. I…” She tried to lie. Then saw his eyelashes. “Six thousand rubles,” came heavily.
Porfiry whistled. And began to laugh. “And she has spent it all on icons and candles, I see.”
“She has been g-generous to us.”
Porfiry smiled at the significant stammer. “It’s easy to be generous with someone else’s money.”
“But he’s dead. The man it belonged to is dead!”
“The man she found it on,” corrected Porfiry deliberately, “was a yardkeeper. How do you suppose a yardkeeper came by six thousand rubles?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you see, it has a bearing on the investigation. The police should have been told about this. When you wrote me your little note, you could have mentioned the six thousand rubles.” Lilya started in amazement. The investigator’s face chided her with gentle irony. “I see my shot has hit the mark. I’m grateful to you for the information you provided, incomplete as it was. Though if Zoya had come forward herself, it would have saved us a lot of trouble, I believe.”
“How did you know?”
“Murder in Petrovsky Park?” Porfiry repeated the words from the anonymous note in a melodramatic whisper. “I didn’t, until you told me that Zoya had discovered the bodies.” Porfiry’s expression became pained as he contemplated his next question. “Was Goryanchikov a client of yours?”
Her shocked expression demanded an explanation of him.
“When you mentioned Goryanchikov, there was something about the way you said his name. And he must have been known to you, otherwise why would Pavel Pavlovich tell you of his death, and how would you know that the body Zoya Nikolaevna had found was his? I’m afraid I asked the question in the way I did because, well, it seemed the most likely way in which any man might be known to you.”
“He came to Fräulein Keller’s. He always asked for me.”
“And what about Virginsky?”
Her brows came together. Her lips seemed to tremble. “It was never like that with Virginsky.”
“But did he know about Goryanchikov? Is it possible that he was jealous?”
“If he was jealous of Goryanchikov, why should he not be jealous of them all?”
“Perhaps he was. In some way.”
“Didn’t the other man do it? The big man hanging from the tree. Zoya said he did it. She found an axe on him. There was blood on it, she said.”
Porfiry sighed wearily.
At that moment, the door to the flat opened. Porfiry looked up to see a round ball of a woman waddle into the room. Her small wrinkled face appeared to have been pinched out of the headscarf that surrounded it. She was carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper, tied with string.
“Babushka!” cried Vera. She abandoned her doll and jumped up, throwing herself at the old woman, whose solid form absorbed the force of her love. Vera made a great fuss of her Babushka, patting and stroking her and smiling up at her with a face that had its own, child’s, cunning. “Babushka, Babushka, my lovely Babushka! What have you brought for me today?”
The old woman, who had by now noticed Porfiry, chuckled but threw a self-conscious glance toward the kitchen table. “Now, now, child, that’s no way to greet your granny.” But she was looking at Porfiry as she said this.
Vera pawed at the brown paper parcel the old woman was holding. “Is it for me?”
“No, darling, this one’s for Granny.”
“Leave Mamma Zoya be, Vera.”
But the child clung to the old woman, pushing a cheek into the soft padding of her body. Zoya too seemed reluctant to release the child. There was defiance in the way she placed one arm around Vera’s head. With the other, she lifted the brown paper parcel to her bosom.
Porfiry rose to his feet and bowed to Zoya. She picked up the nervousness of Lilya’s movements. She saw that there was something guilty and yet obstinate in the girl’s expression. Things had been said, she knew. She pulled Vera into her for protection.
“Ah, this must be the lady about whom I have heard so much. Zoya Nikolaevna, I presume?”
Zoya was not taken in by his “lady.” She tilted her head slyly in answer.
“I am Porfiry Petrovich.”
“This gentleman is a policeman, Mamma Zoya.”
“No. I am an investigating magistrate.” Porfiry smiled. “But no matter. You could say I am a policeman.”
“What is this about?” Zoya clasped her parcel tightly, as if she were afraid he was going to snatch it off her.
“I am investigating the disappearance of a man called Alexei Spiridonovich Ratazyayev.”
Lilya seemed thrown by the announcement; Zoya, relieved. Porfiry noted that she even allowed herself a small grin.
“I don’t know anyone by that name.”
He noticed Lilya frowning at him doubtfully, as if she had suddenly lost faith in him. She seemed almost angry. He met her frown with a smile. “I believe him to be an associate of someone known to you, Lilya Ivanovna.” Alarm showed in her eyes. “Konstantin Kirillovich. Whose family name, I have discovered, is Govorov. Wasn’t it a certain Konstantin Kirillovich who accused you of stealing one hundred rubles?”
“Yes.”
“Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov. The mysterious man who accused you of theft and then ran away before charges could be brought. Why did he do that, do you suppose?”
Lilya shook her head without looking at him.
“Perhaps he believed,” continued Porfiry, “as many do, that it would be enough for a gentleman to accuse a prostitute. That the authorities would naturally take his side. That there would be no need for the formalities to be completed. If so, he is unaware of the changes wrought by our legal reforms. We have juries now, and courts. And defense advocates. It takes more than an accusation to have someone sent to Siberia, even a street girl. But then Konstantin Kirillovich is no gentleman, is he?”
“I don’t know what it means, to be a gentleman,” said Lilya, finally challenging Porfiry with her gaze.
“There are only men!” agreed Zoya Nikolaevna with a high, harsh cry. “There are no gentlemen.”