“A higher authority?”
“Yes.”
“What does he want to know, this higher authority of yours?”
“He wants to know if one Osip Maximovich Simonov was here at Optina Pustyn from the twenty-ninth of November to the eleventh of December.”
“You could have asked Brother Innokentiy that. It was he who looked after the gentleman. He took him his food every day and talked to him.”
“I was ordered to ask you.”
The elder’s eyes rolled away from Ulitin, it seemed in disappointment. Ulitin feared he had pushed the monk too far. “Someone by that name was here.”
“Between those dates?”
The old monk gave a barely perceptible nod. “The convent register will confirm it.”
“Thank you.” Ulitin made to rise. The eyes came back to hold him. These little movements of the eyes seemed to require every last calorie of energy the dying man possessed. They had to be important to him. Any one might be his last.
“Is there nothing else you wish to ask me?”
Ulitin hesitated. “Why did you agree to see me?”
Father Amvrosy swallowed epically. “I wanted to be sure,” he said at last, when the swallowing was finally done. “I wanted to look an atheist in the eye one last time.” As he spoke, the elder was staring fixedly into Ulitin’s eyes. His gaze was as tender and consoling as a lover’s.
“What do you see?” asked Ulitin, hardly daring to breathe.
“Fear,” said Father Amvrosy. With that he closed his eyes. After a moment he murmured something that sounded like “I’m not afraid.”
Ulitin felt himself raised and led from the bedroom. “But I am a believer!” he cried in sudden protest, and the outburst did not seem to surprise anyone.
Back in the room with the wealthy devout, Ulitin guiltily avoided the eyes of the girl in the wheelchair. He felt as though there was something between them, and he had betrayed her.
Her father accosted him. “Did you mention Lana to the elder? Did you tell him he has to see her?”
Ulitin shook his head.
Brother Innokentiy came in. The smile that occupied his lips now transcended all the others Ulitin had seen there. “Father Amvrosy is at peace,” he called, his voice cracking with emotion.
All around Ulitin people fell to their knees and began praying. Yevgeny Nikolaevich Ulitin did the same. The girl in the wheelchair was weeping.
Jupiter’s Bastards
"Is it true?” Nikodim Fomich closed the door to Porfiry’s chambers but seemed unwilling to advance into the room. He was waiting on Porfiry’s reply.
Porfiry blew out a funnel of smoke and flicked the ash from his cigarette. “Is what true?” He looked up from the papers he was studying and hyperblinked.
“Liputin’s latest insanity?”
Porfiry handed the chief superintendent a letter bearing the crest of the prokuror’s office. “I’m to hand over the file relating to the deaths under suspicious circumstances of Stepan Sergeyevich Goryanchikov, Boris Borisovich Kutuzov, and Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov to Prokuror Yaroslav Nikolaevich Liputin. He will take over the handling of the case personally. I am expecting his high excellency at any moment.”
Nikodim Fomich read the note and threw it down on Porfiry’s desk. “But this is absurd. ‘Serious procedural irregularities.’ ‘Misinterpretation and misreporting of medical evidence.’ You told him exactly what Pervoyedov had found. He chose to ignore it.”
“The office of the prokuror is never wrong.”
“But the man’s an idiot. He doesn’t stand a chance of solving the case.”
“I think he believes that I have already solved it.”
“And have you?”
Porfiry shrugged. “I have some theories. I have narrowed down the field of suspects.”
“To how many?”
Porfiry’s eyes rolled upward as he counted in his head. “About six.”
“That’s hardly narrowing the field, Porfiry Petrovich.”
“Or seven.”
“Well, I must say, you seem to be taking it very calmly.” Nikodim Fomich was indignant.
“What can I do about it?”
“You can appeal.”
Porfiry smiled weakly. “I must accept my fate. That’s the Russian way, is it not?”
“No, it isn’t,” objected Nikodim Fomich petulantly. “I don’t believe stoicism is a true Russian trait at all. I deplore it!”
“I must do all I can to help Prokuror Liputin uncover the identity of the murderer. That’s the important thing now. My own personal disappointment is irrelevant.” After a moment, Porfiry added, “Whoever is responsible for these deaths is certainly capable of killing again.”
“Exactly! That’s why you must stay on the case until it’s solved.”
The door opened suddenly. “Prokuror Liputin is here to see you,” said the chief clerk, Zamyotov. He made no attempt to mask his pleasure.
Now the prokuror himself strode into the room. Liputin didn’t acknowledge Nikodim Fomich and dismissed Zamyotov with a curt nod. “Porfiry Petrovich, you have the file I requested?” He held out a hand.
“Of course, your excellency.” Porfiry gathered together the papers on his desk and placed them in a cardboard wallet that he handed to Liputin.
“You will wait until I have studied these papers, then you will answer any questions I put to you. Then you will consider yourself suspended until further notice.”
“Yaroslav Nikolaevich!” cried Nikodim Fomich. “I really must protest. This is hardly just-or sensible.”
Liputin still refused to look in Nikodim Fomich’s direction. His head was bowed as he scanned the contents of the file. “Good day, Nikodim Fomich. Your presence is not required here. I trust you have police matters to attend to.”
“I shall be entering a formal appeal on Porfiry Petrovich’s behalf.”
“Which I shall look forward to processing.” The corner of Liputin’s mouth went into spasm.
Porfiry Petrovich released his friend from the room with a gentle smile.
The prokuror took over Porfiry’s desk. Every now and then, for instance when he was studying the pornographic photographs found in Govorov’s apartment, he would look across disapprovingly at Porfiry, as if he were responsible. Porfiry was sitting on the brown fake-leather sofa, chain-smoking. Occasionally the prokuror seemed about to say something but always thought better of it. At last he placed the final piece of paper, the line written by Anna Alexandrovna, back into the file and sat back in Porfiry’s chair.
His eyes were fixed on Porfiry, who sat up expectantly and stubbed out the cigarette he was smoking in the crystal ashtray that was resting on the arm of the sofa.
“So, Porfiry Petrovich,” began Liputin, “you think that Anna Alexandrovna is the murderer? Is that really likely? A woman? And a woman of her class too? Do you not think she would be restrained by modesty and a sense of shame?”
“She could equally be motivated by them. Or rather by a false modesty and a distorted sense of shame. To keep certain things secret. Poison is a notoriously female weapon.”
“But she would have to have had a man working with her. If only to string up the yardkeeper.”
Porfiry shrugged. “I have my theories about that. More of a problem is the fact that her hand does not match the note I found in the box in Borya’s shed. I believe it was that note that led him to his death.”
“It does not match?” asked Liputin, somewhat surprised. He searched quickly through the file to produce the two sheets of paper. “The paper is different, of course. But that means nothing.”
“The paper is different. And that means nothing, as you say. But there are differences in the handwriting. Anna Alexandrovna’s is more rounded and, I would say, feminine. I believe the other note was written by a man attempting to copy her hand.”