“I agree.”
The startled bristling of Liputin’s unruly eyebrows settled into a suspicious scowl. “In that case, how do you explain-?”
“The two voices in the flat?”
Prokuror Liputin nodded anxiously.
“Govorov was an actor, a skilled mimic. It is my belief that he was talking to himself. It is likely that he was drunk. If he had been poisoned, he was possibly also raving. We all rehearse or reenact arguments in our heads. Perhaps he was simply vocalizing the process.”
“Exactly! You have explained it just as I would myself. Apart from the poisoning. I would not have hypothesized poisoning. It was just a drunken actor raving, preliminary to the extreme moment.”
“But you are overlooking the mysterious individual on the stairs, whose presence was mentioned by both witnesses. Tolkachenko said that his voice sounded familiar. When pressed on this, he claimed that it was the same as the other voice he had heard in the flat, the voice that was not Govorov’s. Or, if my theory is correct, the voice that Govorov was mimicking.”
“What does that prove?” demanded Liputin antagonistically.
“It proves nothing. It suggests, perhaps, that Govorov had just been conversing with this individual and was playing the scene again, this time taking both parts. Perhaps rewriting the script so that he got the better of his interlocutor. In all likelihood, the two men had parted company at Govorov’s door. But for some reason the mysterious man did not leave the building. He went up to the next landing and waited. What was he waiting for? Possibly for the sound of Govorov’s fall.”
“Perhaps this, possibly that, in all likelihood the other-”
“Very well. I will confine myself to those things I know for certain. The words that Govorov spoke, in his own voice, through the door to Tolkachenko. ‘It’s not me who’s the murderer.’ This is not simply a protestation of innocence. It is also the beginning of an accusation. It suggests he knows who the real murderer is. Providing someone with a motive for killing him. A reasonable supposition would be the individual waiting on the stairs.”
“But you are forgetting one thing, Porfiry Petrovich. There is no real murderer because there has been no real murder. What murder? Not the dwarf, I hope? Because you know very well that the man who killed the dwarf died by his own hand.”
“But the new evidence-”
“The new evidence concerned the disappearance of Ratazyayev. Do you have evidence that Ratazyayev has been murdered? Did his body turn up? If so, I am surprised you did not inform me of such a significant development.” The prokuror couldn’t help smirking at the cleverness of his satire.
“At the very least, in the case of the sudden demise of an otherwise healthy individual in the prime of his life-”
“That hardly describes this fellow Govorov.”
“-the law requires we establish cause of death. A medical examination is required for that.”
“A medical examination is not necessary for every old soak who drinks himself into the ground. Your own report mentions the empty bottle found near the body.”
“But what if we were wrong to dismiss Dr. Pervoyedov’s findings concerning the cause of death in the case of the yardkeeper? Let us allow, for one moment, that Borya was poisoned with contaminated vodka. Do we now have another instance of the same crime? Is this a modus operandi? Will it come out, will it be something we read about in the newspapers, that in our eagerness to close that case, we allowed a murderer to kill again? It is too late to prevent Govorov’s death. But imagine the scandal there would be if we made the same mistake again.”
“Porfiry Petrovich. I am not wrong. I am never wrong. It is impossible for the office of the prokuror to make mistakes. The law is quite clear on this. However”-Prokuror Liputin looked Porfiry in the eye-“it is certainly possible that you could have made a mistake. You could, for example, have misinterpreted my instructions.”
“I am sure that that is what has happened.”
“So I shall speak very clearly this time, in order that there should be no misunderstanding. You are to commission Dr. Pervoyedov to conduct a medical examination of the deceased Govorov forthwith. If the test for prussic acid poisoning is positive, you are to reopen the case of the dwarf-”
“Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov.”
“-and the yardkeeper. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Prokuror Liputin.”
“Incidentally, if Dr. Pervoyedov does find that Govorov was poisoned by prussic acid, I will have no choice but to instigate disciplinary proceedings against you, Porfiry Petrovich.”
“I understand, your excellency,” said Porfiry, almost losing his balance through the depth of his bow.
The body was wrapped in a green canvas sheet, rubberized on the inside. Two rubber-aproned orderlies lifted it from the trolley, one at either end. They grimaced noiselessly as they took the full weight. It seemed a point of pride to them not to utter a sound. The load did not sag or bend at any point. The orderlies seemed surprised by this rigidity, although they must have experienced it before. Perhaps it surprised them anew each time they encountered it. Or perhaps they were thinking of something else entirely.
They dropped it heavily on the waist-high examination table, the pine surface of which was as pitted and stained as a butcher’s block. It had beveled edges and a drainage hole at one end over an enamel trough. There was another, smaller table to one side, with a large set of balancing scales on it.
“How extraordinary. What an extraordinarily novel idea,” commented Dr. Pervoyedov, as he opened the canvas sheet exposing the gray-faced cadaver beneath. “To conduct a medical examination in a hospital! That is to say, to arrange the medical examination to suit the convenience of the medical examiner. What is the world coming to? What indeed. I wonder if our beloved tsar, when he began to entertain the notion of reform, I wonder if he ever dreamed that it would lead to such, such…revolutionary novelties!” Dr. Pervoyedov seemed particularly pleased with this choice of word and so repeated it several times: “Novelties. Yes, novelties. Here at the Obukhovsky Hospital, novelties!”
Major General Volkonsky and Actual State Councilor Yepanchin were once again in attendance as official witnesses. They frowned disapprovingly at Pervoyedov’s outburst.
Porfiry Petrovich smiled indulgently. “I was much struck by the prokuror’s use of the word ‘forthwith.’ Equally by his tone. There was an urgency to it. I took it upon myself to ensure that there would be no possibility of delay.”
“Will Prokuror Liputin be joining us?”
“I think not,” said Porfiry. His smile became tense. “I have the feeling that he wishes to maintain a certain distance from the proceedings until the outcome is clear.”
“Would that we all had that luxury.” After this comment Dr. Pervoyedov worked in silence. He was helped by one of the orderlies, who took upon himself the role of diener. Dr. Pervoyedov had not trained in Germany, but he had learned his pathology from professors who had and from the German textbooks they had brought back with them. The doctor communicated with his assistant-or “servant,” to translate the German term more accurately-through a system of finely nuanced facial expressions and nods. First Pervoyedov examined the already exposed areas of the corpse, including the eyes and fingernails. Then he nodded to the diener, and they began between them to remove the clothes. There was something numbing about the dead man’s open-eyed passivity as he was hefted to facilitate his last undressing.
Now the body lay naked on its back. The contaminating grayness of death had been released. The abdomen spread out to the sides in soft, uneven mounds. The penis was plump and stunted, shrunken into itself. It had the shamefaced air of a whipped dog. It was hard to think of anything more insignificant. Porfiry thought back to the time in the pawnbroker’s when Govorov had accosted him. He felt himself blush and averted his gaze distastefully.