Sooner or later our suspicions were bound to be resolved.
That same year, at the end of November, when snowflakes were circling before my windows and the lake resembled a boundless white desert, Kuzma expressed a wish to see me. He sent the guard to tell me that he’d had a ‘good think’. I gave instructions for him to be brought to me.
‘I’m delighted that you’ve finally had a “good think”,’ I said, greeting him. ‘It’s high time you stopped being so secretive and trying to make fools of us, as if we were little children. So, what have you had a good think about?’
Kuzma didn’t reply. He stood in the middle of my room, looking at me without blinking or saying a word. And he really did have the look of someone scared out of his wits. He was pale and trembling and a cold sweat streamed down his face.
‘Well, tell me what you’ve had a good think about,’ I repeated.
‘About things more weird and wonderful than you could ever imagine,’ he said. ‘Yesterday I remembers the colours of tie that gent was wearing and last night I thinks ’ard about it and I remembers ’is face.’
‘So, who was it?’
Kuzma produced a sickly smile and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
‘It’s too terrible to tell, yer ’onner, please allow me not to say. It was all so weird and wonderful that I thinks I must ’ave been dreaming – or I imagined it all!’
‘Well, who did you imagine you saw?’
‘Please allow me not to say! If I do you’ll convict me. Let me ’ave a good think and I’ll tell you tomorrow. Cor, I’m scared stiff!’
‘Pah!’ I exclaimed, getting angry. ‘Why are you bothering me like this if you don’t want to tell me? Why did you come here?’
‘I thought of telling you, like, but now I’m afraid. No, yer ’onner, please let me go now. I’d better tell you tomorrow… You’d get so mad if I told you, I’d be better off in Siberia… you’d convict me.’
I lost my temper and ordered Kuzma to be taken away.*
That same evening, in order not to waste time and to have done once and for all with that tiresome murder case, I went to the cells and fooled Urbenin by telling him that Kuzma had named him as the murderer.
‘I was expecting that,’ Urbenin said, waving his hand. ‘It’s all the same to me now…’
Solitary confinement had had a terrible effect on Urbenin’s robust health. He had turned yellowish and lost almost half his weight. I promised him that I would instruct the warders to let him walk up and down the corridors during the day – and even at night.
‘We’re not worried that you might try and escape,’ I said.
Urbenin thanked me and after I had gone he was already strolling down the corridor. His door was no longer kept locked.
After leaving him I knocked at the door of Kuzma’s cell.
‘Well, have you had a good think?’
‘No, sir,’ a feeble voice replied. ‘Let Mr Prosecutor come – I’ll tell ‘im. But I’m not telling you!’
‘Please yourself.’
Next morning everything was decided.
Warder Yegor came running to tell me that one-eyed Kuzma had been found dead in his bed. I went off to the prison and convinced myself that this was the case. That sturdy, strapping peasant, who only the day before had radiated health and had invented various fairy tales to obtain his release, was as still and cold as a stone. I shall not begin to describe the warder’s and my own horror: the reader will understand. Kuzma was valuable to me as defendant or witness, but for the warders he was a prisoner, for whose death or escape they would have to pay dearly. Our horror was all the greater when the subsequent autopsy confirmed a violent death. Kuzma died from asphyxiation. Convinced that he had been strangled, I started searching for the culprit and it did not take me long to find him… he was close at hand.
I went to Urbenin’s cell. Unable to restrain myself, and forgetting that I was an investigator, I named him as the murderer, in the harshest possible terms.
‘You scoundrel! You weren’t satisfied with killing your poor wife,’ I said. ‘On top of that you had to kill someone who had discovered your guilt. And still you persist with your filthy, villainous play-acting!’
Urbenin turned terribly pale and staggered.
‘You’re lying!’ he shouted, beating his breast with his fist.
‘It’s not me who’s lying! You shed crocodile tears at our evidence, you mocked it. There were moments when I wanted to believe you rather than the evidence itself… Oh, you’re such a fine actor! But now I wouldn’t believe you even if blood flowed from your eyes instead of those false, theatrical tears. Tell me – you did kill Kuzma, didn’t you?’
‘You’re either drunk or making fun of me, Sergey Petrovich. There are limits to a man’s patience and subservience. I can’t take any more of this!’
With flashing eyes Urbenin banged his fist on the table.
‘Yesterday I was rash enough to allow you some freedom,’ I continued. ‘I allowed you what no other inmate is allowed – to walk down the corridors. And now, as a token of gratitude, you went to that unfortunate Kuzma’s cell during the night and strangled a sleeping man. Do you realize it’s not only Kuzma whom you’ve destroyed – because of you, all the warders will be ruined.’
‘But what in heaven’s name have I done?’ Urbenin asked, clutching his head.
‘Do you want me to prove it? Let me explain. On my orders your door was left unlocked. Those idiotic warders opened the door and forgot to hide the padlock – all the cells are locked with the same key. During the night you took the key, went out into the corridor and unlocked your neighbour’s door. After strangling him you locked the door and put the key back in the lock.’
‘But why should I want to strangle him? Why?’
‘Because he named you as the murderer. If I hadn’t told you this yesterday he’d still be alive. It’s sinful and shameful, Pyotr Yegorych!’
‘Sergey Petrovich! You’re a young man!’ the murderer suddenly said in a soft and gentle voice, grasping my hand. ‘You’re an honest, respectable person… don’t ruin me and don’t sully yourself with unfounded suspicions and over-hasty accusations. You’ve no idea how cruelly and painfully you’ve insulted me by foisting a new accusation on my soul, which is guilty of absolutely nothing! I’m a martyr, Sergey Petrovich! You should be ashamed of wronging a martyr! The time will come when you’ll have to apologize to me – and that time’s not far off. I haven’t been formally charged yet, but my defence will not satisfy you. Rather than attacking and insulting me so horribly, you’d do better if you questioned me humanely – I won’t say as a friend – you’ve already washed your hands of our friendship! I would have been more useful to you in the cause of justice as witness and assistant than in the role of accused. Take for example this new accusation – I could have told you a great deaclass="underline" last night I didn’t sleep and I could hear everything that was going on.’
‘What did you hear?’
‘Last night, at about two o’clock, it was very dark… I heard someone walking ever so quietly down the corridor and constantly trying my door. He kept walking and walking – and then he opened my door and came in.’
‘Who was it?’
‘I don’t know – it was too dark to see. He stood for about a minute in my cell, then he left. And just as you said, he took the key out of my door and unlocked the door to the next cell. For about two minutes I heard hoarse breathing, then a scuffle. I thought that it was the warder fussing about and I took the noise to be nothing else than snoring, otherwise I would have raised the alarm.’
‘Fairy tales!’ I said. ‘There was no one here except you who could have killed Kuzma. The duty warders were asleep. One of their wives, who didn’t sleep all night, testified that all three warders had slept like logs the whole night and never left their beds for one minute. The poor devils didn’t know that such brutes could be knocking around in this wretched prison. They’ve been employed here for more than twenty years and all that time there hasn’t been one escape, not to mention such abominations as murder. Now, thanks to you, their lives have been turned upside down. And I’ll catch it too for not sending you to the main prison and for giving you freedom to stroll down the corridors. Thank you very much!’