He came back a moment later, his demeanor perceptibly more relaxed.
“There’s no one here.”
“Are you sure?”
“I have searched the whole place. There is one room adjoining this one, a small kitchen.”
“And the windows?”
“I have checked them all. Locked from the inside. Is that Govorov?” Salytov pointed his pistol toward the body.
Porfiry picked up and sniffed an empty vodka bottle that had been lying on its side near the body. “We will need our friend outside to confirm that. If it is, then I have to confess that this is not the first time I have encountered the elusive Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov.”
One of Salytov’s eyebrows rippled inquisitively.
“I met him once before, in Lyamshin’s Pawnbroker’s. He was pawning a guitar.” Porfiry lifted the broken guitar neck attached by its strings to the crushed sounding box beneath the body. “It seems he found the funds he needed to redeem it.”
" Yes, that’s Govorov,” confirmed Tolkachenko. His expression was startled, almost outraged, as if he had been cheated by the man lying dead on the floor.
Porfiry nodded distractedly. “But you said there were two men in here? You said you heard two voices, did you not?”
“Yes. That’s true.”
Porfiry pointed at the body with an unlit cigarette. “One voice was his?”
Tolkachenko nodded.
“And the other? Did you recognize the other?”
“Well, here is a strange thing,” said Tolkachenko. “I didn’t recognize it. And then I did.”
“What?” barked Salytov.
“I mean, there was this fellow. He came down the stairs. He spoke to me.”
“What did he say?” asked Porfiry, scrutinizing his cigarette as if he had never seen one before.
“‘Good day to you.’ He said, ‘Good day to you.’” This seemed to strike Tolkachenko as the most scandalous aspect of the whole affair.
“I see.”
“Well, the thing is, the really strange thing…it was the same voice.”
“What do you mean, it was the same voice?” Salytov’s impatience showed in the rush of color over his face.
“I mean, it was him.”
It looked for a moment as though Salytov would strike the yardkeeper.
Porfiry intervened quickly. “You mean the voice of the man on the stairs was the same as the voice of the man whom you had locked inside Govorov’s flat with Govorov?”
“Yes!” cried Tolkachenko.
“But that’s impossible!” Salytov thrashed the air in his frustration.
“Yes!” repeated Tolkachenko, smiling in amazement.
Porfiry finally put the cigarette in his mouth. “So, Ilya Petrovich,” he said. He broke off to light the cigarette. “It seems we have a mystery on our hands.” Porfiry let the smoke escape with his words. “The question is”-he inhaled deeply again and waited before exhaling and continuing-“who was this other person in the flat with Govorov?” Again he paused to draw deeply on the cigarette. “And even more perplexing, how could he be both locked inside the flat and coming down the stairs?” Porfiry smoked the cigarette through, only to be taken aback by the stub. He extinguished it between his thumb and forefinger and then handed it to Tolkachenko, with an absentminded “You may take that.” Tolkachenko frowned at the stub as Porfiry lit a second cigarette. “It is a mystery, but”-Porfiry smoked with professional determination-“I feel confident we will get to the bottom of it. What do you say?”
Salytov didn’t answer. He was lost in angry thought.
“Logic. We must apply logic,” continued Porfiry. “Cold, dispassionate logic. Don’t allow the puzzle to disturb your temper. You cannot solve it if you’re annoyed at it.”
“But it is impossible!” insisted Salytov crossly.
“No, patently it is possible.” Porfiry’s insistence was calm. “That is the first logically inevitable deduction we can make. It has happened, therefore it is possible. The actual is incontrovertibly possible.”
Salytov shook his head impatiently.
“Think about it, Ilya Petrovich.”
“You have worked it out?”
“A logical conclusion has forced itself on me.”
“How? How could you have…from this?”
“Perhaps I have an unfair advantage over you. As I said, I have met this gentleman before.”
“In the pawnbroker’s. What of it?”
“He impressed me with a dramatic recitation from Gogol’s The Government Inspector. He was once an actor, you see. His style was very natural. He seemed to become the character he was playing.”
Salytov’s face clouded in confusion. He looked from Porfiry down to the body, then back to Porfiry. “But why?”
Porfiry shrugged. He had another cigarette stub to dispose of. Tolkachenko steadfastly ignored his eye. “One thing at a time, Ilya Petrovich. One thing at a time.”
Govorov Speaks
Porfiry looked out the window of the prokuror’s chambers, down on to Gorokhovaya Street. He wanted very much to smoke.
So he was gazing out of the window as a distraction. The streetlamps were lit, chains of illumination strung across the early morning gloom. Behind him he heard the riffle of papers and the prokuror’s deep sighs.
Porfiry turned to see Prokuror Liputin close the report he had submitted. It contained statements taken from Tolkachenko and Iakov Borodonich, together with a formal request from Porfiry for a medical examination to be conducted on the body now confirmed to be that of Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov.
Liputin’s expression was not encouraging.
“So, Porfiry Petrovich, you truly believe that this constitutes sufficient grounds for an application of habeas corpus?”
“Indeed I do, your excellency. I would not have troubled you with the matter otherwise.”
Liputin screwed up his nose dismissively. “The man died alone. In a locked room. In your report, you yourself state that there was no evidence of an attack. No blood, no wounds, no bruises. The epidermis is intact.”
“I stated there was no forensic evidence of attack. However, the yardkeeper testified that he heard a struggle.”
“No, no, no! We can’t base a case on what someone thinks he heard through a locked door. Especially when it is not consistent with what is logically possible.”
“But it is consistent with what is logically possible,” insisted Porfiry. “If we suppose that Govorov was struggling not with a human assailant but with a chemical one.”
Liputin masked his confusion with a frown of annoyance and shook his head impatiently.
“I suspect poisoning, your excellency, as in the case of-”
“You’re not going to bring up the yardkeeper, are you?” cried the prokuror in an irritable drawl. “As you know, that case is closed.”
“Leaving that aside, there is the dead man’s connection to the missing actor, Ratazyayev. An autopsy would determine-”
“But are we really justified in seeking an autopsy? Is it not more likely that Govorov simply died from natural causes?”
“It is certainly a possibility. Though it would be a strange coincidence given the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?” Liputin’s look of distaste suggested that he immediately regretted asking the question.
“As you will have read in the relevant statement, the yardkeeper heard two people enter the building.”
“So he says. He could simply have been mistaken. As for his tale of two voices inside the apartment, that is simply not sustainable.”
“I agree. Given that the windows were locked from the inside and given also Tolkachenko’s constant presence outside the locked door, the presence of a second person in Govorov’s apartment is without doubt logically impossible.”
“You agree?” Liputin seemed more surprised by this than by any aspect of the case before him. It was evidently something he needed to confirm: “You agree?” he asked again.