‘I didn’t see the villain… but when I was running towards her I heard someone’s hurried footsteps. It was probably him running away.’
‘That’s all very neatly thought out, Pyotr Yegorych,’ I said. ‘But are you aware that investigating magistrates are usually very sceptical about such rare events as the murder coinciding with that chance stroll of yours, etc. Quite cleverly invented, but it explains very little.’
‘What do you mean invented?’ Urbenin exclaimed, opening his eyes wide. ‘I wasn’t inventing anything, sir.’
Urbenin suddenly went red and stood up.
‘It seems as if you suspect me,’ he muttered. ‘It’s possible to suspect anyone, but you, Sergey Petrovich, have known me a long time… It’s a sin branding me with such suspicions. After all, you know me very well.’
‘Of course I know you… but my personal opinions are irrelevant here. The law allows only juries to have personal opinions, but an investigating magistrate deals purely with the evidence… And there’s a great deal of evidence, Pyotr Yegorych.’
Urbenin looked at me in alarm and shrugged his shoulders.
‘But whatever the evidence,’ he said, ‘you must understand … Well, do you really think I would have been capable of murder…? Me? And of murdering her? I could easily kill a quail or a woodcock, but a human being, someone dearer to me than life itself, dearer than my own salvation, the very thought of whom used to brighten my miserable existence like the sun! And suddenly you suspect me!’
Urbenin made a despairing gesture and sat down.
‘As it is, all I want to do is die – and yet you have to insult me into the bargain! It would be bad enough if some civil servant. I didn’t know was insulting me, but it’s you, Sergey Petrovich!! Please let me go!’
‘You may… I’ll examine you again tomorrow, but in the meantime, Pyotr Yegorych, I must place you under house arrest… I hope that by tomorrow’s examination you’ll have come to appreciate all the importance of the evidence we have against you, that you won’t start dragging things out for nothing and that you’ll confess. I’m convinced Olga was murdered by you. That’s all I have to say today. You may go.’
This said, I bent over my papers. Urbenin looked at me in bewilderment, stood up and stretched his fingers out somewhat peculiarly.
‘Are you joking… or are you serious?’ he asked.
‘This is beyond a joke,’ I said. ‘You can go.’
Urbenin still remained standing. He was pale and he looked at my papers in dismay.
‘Why are your hands bloodstained, Pyotr Yegorych?’ I asked.
He looked down at his hands, on which there were still traces of blood, and twitched his fingers.
‘Why is there blood? Hm… if you think this is evidence then it’s very poor evidence. When I was lifting bloodstained Olga I couldn’t avoid getting my hands bloodied. I wasn’t wearing any gloves.’
‘You just told me that when you saw your wife you shouted for help. How is it no one heard your shouts?’
‘I don’t know. I was so stunned at the sight of Olga that I couldn’t shout out loud… But I don’t know anything. I don’t have to defend myself. Besides, it’s not my policy…’
‘But you could hardly have shouted… After killing your wife you ran off and were absolutely stunned to see those people at the edge of the forest.’
‘I didn’t notice those people of yours either. I had no time for people.’
With this my examination of Urbenin was over for the time being. Urbenin was then put under house arrest and locked up in one of the Count’s outbuildings.
XXV
On the second or third day Polugradov, the deputy prosecutor, a man whom I cannot recall without spoiling my mood, came bowling in from town. Imagine a tall, thin man of about thirty, dressed like a fop, smoothly shaven, with hair as curly as a lamb’s. He had fine features, but they were so dry and insipid that it wasn’t difficult to deduce that individual’s shallowness and pomposity from them. His voice was soft, sugary and sickeningly polite.
He arrived early in the morning, in a hired carriage, with two suitcases. Wearing an extremely worried expression and complaining of ‘fatigue’ with great affectation, he first of all inquired whether there was a room for him in the Count’s house. On my instructions a small but very comfortable and bright room had been set aside, where everything was provided, from a marble washstand to a box of matches.
‘Listen to what I say, my good man! Bring me some hot water,’ he began, making himself comfortable and squeamishly sniffing the air. ‘My deah fellow! I’m talking to you! Hot water, if you don’t mind!’
And before getting down to business he spent ages dressing, washing and preening himself. He even cleaned his teeth with red powder and took three minutes to clip his sharp, pink nails.
‘Well, sir!’ he said, at last getting down to business and leafing through our reports. ‘What’s it all about?’
I told him the facts of the case without omitting a single detail.
‘Have you been to the scene of the crime?’
‘No, not yet.’
The deputy prosecutor frowned, ran his white womanish hands across his freshly washed forehead and strode up and down the room.
‘I simply don’t understand why on earth you haven’t been there!’ he muttered. ‘That’s the very first thing you should have done, I assume! Did you forget – or didn’t you think it necessary?’
‘Neither: yesterday I was waiting for the police. But I shall go today.’
‘There’s nothing left there now. It’s been raining every day and you gave the criminal time to cover his tracks. You could have at least stationed a guard there. No? I don’t un-der-stand!’
And the fop imperiously shrugged his shoulders.
‘Drink your tea, it’s getting cold,’ I said in an indifferent tone.
‘I like it cold.’
The deputy prosecutor leant over the papers. Filling the whole room with his heavy breathing he started reading in an undertone, occasionally making his own notes and corrections. Twice his mouth twisted into a sarcastic smile. For some reason that cunning devil* was pleased neither with my report nor the doctors’. It was only too easy to see in that sleek, freshly washed civil servant a pedant, stuffed with self-importance and the consciousness of his own worth.
At noon we were at the scene of the crime. It was pouring with rain. Of course, we found neither stains nor tracks. Everything had been washed away by the rain. Somehow I managed to find one of the missing buttons from the murdered Olga’s riding habit; and the deputy prosecutor picked up some kind of red pulp that later turned out to be a tobacco packet. At first we came across a bush with two of its branches broken off along one side. The deputy prosecutor was delighted at this discovery: they could have been broken off by the criminal and would therefore indicate the direction he took after murdering Olga. But his joy was unfounded: we soon found several bushes with broken-off branches and nibbled leaves. It turned out that a herd of cattle had wandered over the scene of the crime.
Having sketched out a plan of the locality and questioned the coachmen we had taken with us about the position in which Olga had been found, we returned empty-handed. When we were inspecting the scene an outside observer would have detected apathy and sluggishness in our movements. Perhaps we were partly inhibited by the fact that the criminal was already in our hands and that there was therefore no need to embark on an analysis à la Le Coq.53
After he returned from the forest Polugradov once again took ages to wash and dress himself, and once again he demanded hot water. After completing his toilet he expressed a wish to question Urbenin once again. Poor Pyotr Yegorych said nothing new at this cross-examination – as before, he denied his guilt and didn’t give a damn for our evidence.