“Konstantin Kirillovich took photographs of you, didn’t he?”
“I allowed him to.” Her voice came from somewhere dead.
“But a photograph is not so terrible. At least it does not involve-”
“Oh, it involved the worst that you could imagine!” cried Lilya despairingly.
“And you were young, you were very young?” His question offered mitigation.
Lilya nodded rapidly. She dabbed tears out of her eyes and looked toward her daughter. “It was…in the beginning.”
“But you did it,” said Porfiry. His tone was flat, not accusing. It was as if he were speaking her thoughts for her.
“Yes.” The word came heavily. “I did it.” She searched his eyelashes for some sign of understanding; or more: redemption.
“This time, however,” pressed Porfiry, “was different. What was it that he asked of you this time?”
Lilya shook her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed now. She would not look at any of them. Like the faces in the icons that surrounded them, her gaze was fixed on another world. But it was not heaven that she was contemplating.
“Leave her alone!” barked Zoya Nikolaevna threateningly.
“I need to find Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov,” insisted Porfiry calmly, without apology. “Lilya, can you tell me, when he took the photographs of you, where was it?”
But Lilya was lost to him.
“You will look after her.” Porfiry’s command drew an eager nod from Zoya Nikolaevna. “Is there anything you can tell me about this man?” This time she shook her head, with equal resolution. “About the money you took…”
“I found it, fair and square.”
“On a dead man. It is a punishable offense to disturb police evidence. More important, there is the issue of to whom it belongs. There is every chance the money was stolen.”
“Yes! That’s it!” cried Zoya, startling Lilya out of her trance. “He stole it off the dwarf. That’s why he killed the dwarf, to get his money. So it doesn’t matter! The dwarf is dead. What can the dwarf want with the money now?”
“Please don’t call him that,” sobbed Lilya, suddenly. “He was a man. His name was Stepan Sergeyevich.”
“I hope to God you haven’t spent it all on these?” Porfiry threw a dismissive hand toward the edges of the room. He glared at Zoya. “What they need, what you all need, is provision in this world. If you’re worried about the next world, you can pray. Prayer is free, after all.” There was an edge of exasperation in his voice.
Zoya Nikolaevna hung her head. “But they are so beautiful.”
“If she ever has to go back to Fräulein Keller’s, I will pack you off to Siberia so fast-”
“We’ll give the money back!” cried Lilya. Zoya shook her head warningly.
“I would dearly love to know,” said Porfiry, ignoring Lilya’s interjection, “what else you found in Petrovsky Park. Was there anything, anything at all, other than the money you took?”
“There was a pack of smutty playing cards I found on the dw-” Zoya broke off and bit her bottom lip contritely. “On the little fellow.”
“Stepan Sergeyevich,” supplied Lilya.
“But I sold them,” continued Zoya. She gave a little penitent shrug and smiled at Porfiry in a way that was almost schoolgirlish.
“Anything else?”
“Just this.” She took her arm away from the child’s head and delved into her layers with one hand. A moment later she pulled out a small key.
“Where did you find it?” asked Porfiry, taking and examining it.
“On the big brute.”
Porfiry pocketed the key and took out his cigarette case. With an unlit cigarette in his mouth he regarded Zoya for some time, as if deciding what was to be done with her. He looked down at the little girl who was still clinging to her Babushka. The child’s face was taut with fear.
“Who is the child’s father?” he asked at last.
There was an anguished cry from Lilya.
“She’s never told me,” said Zoya, meeting Porfiry’s gaze steadily. “And she won’t ever tell you.”
Porfiry nodded. He bent over one of the candle flames and lit the cigarette. “Why not? Doesn’t she know?”
“She will not speak of it,” said Zoya through tightly clamped teeth, as if she were uttering a curse. “She will not speak of it.” The repeated words had the passionately felt but unthinking intonation of a liturgical chant, rising in intensity until a third, finaclass="underline" “She will not speak of it.”
The Perfumed Letter
The Peter and Paul Fortress cannon signaled midday with an irrefutable boom. As though to escape the impact of the distant shot, Porfiry hurried his step as he pushed open the door to the building in Stolyarny Lane, shivering in from the cold. The Haymarket District Police Bureau was on the fourth floor. Cooking smells came from the open doors of the flats he passed on the way up. The stairs were steep. He paused at the landing of the second floor to light a cigarette. The smoke thickened the gloom of the stairwell. It was narrow here, and he had to stand to one side to let porters and police officers go by in both directions. These purposeful men regarded him with suspicion. But he took his time. He needed to feel the tobacco smoke’s stimulating influence spread throughout his body before he could go on. When he did finally move, it was as if he were borne up on the swirling wisps.
As he entered the bureau, he caught the look of avid expectancy in Prince Bykov’s eyes, and his heart sank. The young nobleman ran toward him with quick, clipping steps. “Porfiry Petrovich!”
“Prince Bykov. How delightful to see you again.”
“Porfiry Petrovich, I have something that I believe will be useful to you in your investigation. Alexander Grigorevich said it would be all right for me to wait.”
“Alexander Grigorevich?” repeated Porfiry, with a quick, arch glance to Zamyotov. “I did not realize you two…gentlemen were on such terms.” The clerk’s answering glare was characteristically insolent. Porfiry bowed and clicked his heels as he took the photograph that Prince Bykov was holding out to him. It was a studio portrait of a striking man of about forty years of age. His face possessed traces of the masculine beauty that had once defined it: the strong, flaring nose, the heroic chin and sculptural cheekbones. Somehow these were what came out to the viewer and not the slackened flesh around them. Yes, he was running to fat and, it could fairly be said, had his best years behind him. The hair was receding, but its blond glow and defiant length signaled a former glory, and the angle of the forehead that was increasingly exposed was finely determined. More than anything, there was a compelling intensity to his eyes. They glared out of the picture and fixed the observer with an unflinching openness that combined power and vulnerability. The man’s pose was artificial, theatrical even, but some quality of amused intelligence in his face seemed to acknowledge this. Beneath the superficial artifice, Porfiry detected the hint of a deeper honesty. He was not a man to be trusted, a man capable of lying, certainly. But neither was he a man who lied to himself. He must be lively company, was Porfiry’s thought.
“This is Ratazyayev,” said Porfiry.
“Yes,” confirmed Prince Bykov.
“He’s older than I imagined.” Porfiry lifted his head and watched the prince thoughtfully. He was thinking of the bond between the young prince and the aging actor.
“How is the investigation going?” demanded Prince Bykov abruptly.
“Makar Alexeyevich.” Porfiry Petrovich used the time it took to say the name and patronymic to consider the many responses available to him. Finally, he settled for: “It is making progress.”
“But you have not found Ratazyayev?”
“Does the name Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov mean anything to you?”
“Govorov? I have heard the name, I think.”
“He is a known associate of your friend Ratazyayev’s.”
The prince blushed. “Alexei Spiridonovich has many friends. I have not been introduced to them all.”