‘Go on, go on.’
‘And you conducted the investigation in the most disgracefully slapdash way. It’s difficult to accept the fact that a clever and extremely cunning person like yourself didn’t do this on purpose. Your entire investigation reminds one of a letter written with deliberate grammatical mistakes… all this exaggeration gives you away. Why didn’t you inspect the scene of the crime? It wasn’t because you forgot to or considered it unimportant, but because you waited for the rain to wash away your tracks. You say little about the servants’ cross-examination. Therefore Kuzma wasn’t cross-examined by you until you caught him washing that coat. Obviously there was no need for you to involve him. Why didn’t you question the guests who had been carousing with you on the forest’s edge? They had seen the bloodstained Urbenin and heard Olga’s shrieks – so you should have questioned them. But this you did not do, in case one of them remembered during the inquiry that shortly before the murder you had disappeared into the forest. They were probably questioned later, but by then this circumstance had already been forgotten by them.’
‘Very clever!’ Kamyshev said, rubbing his hands. ‘Please do go on!’
‘Surely all that’s been said is enough for you? To establish beyond all doubt that Olga was murdered by you, I must again remind you that you were her lover, a lover who was replaced by a man you detested! A husband can kill from jealousy and I assume a lover can do likewise. Now, let’s turn to Kuzma. Judging from the last cross-examination that took place on the eve of his death, he had you in mind. You wiped your hands on his coat and called him “drunken swine”. If it wasn’t you, then why did you conclude the interrogation at the most interesting point? Why didn’t you inquire about the colour of the murderer’s tie when Kuzma told you that he remembered what colour it was? Why did you give Urbenin his freedom at the precise moment when Kuzma remembered the name of the murderer? Why not earlier? Why not later? It was obvious you needed a scapegoat, someone to wander down the corridor at night. Therefore you murdered Kuzma because you were afraid he might testify against you.’
‘That’s enough!’ laughed Kamyshev. ‘Enough! You’ve got yourself so worked up and you’ve turned so pale, you look as if you’re about to faint any minute. Please stop now. In fact you’re right. I was the murderer.’
There was silence. I paced from corner to corner. Kamyshev did the same.
‘I committed the murders,’ Kamyshev went on. ‘You’ve scored a bull’s eye! Congratulations! Not many people could manage that – more than half your readers will be damning old Urbenin and be dazzled by my investigatory brilliance!’
Just then one of my colleagues came into the office and interrupted our conversation. Noticing that I was very preoccupied and excited, he hovered around my table, looked quizzically at Kamyshev and went out. After he had gone Kamyshev stepped over to the window and started breathing on the glass.
‘Eight years have passed since then,’ he resumed after a brief silence, ‘and for eight years I’ve been carrying this secret around with me. But secrets and living blood cannot coexist in the same organism. One cannot know what the rest of humanity does not know without suffering for it. Throughout these eight years I’ve felt like a martyr. It was not my conscience that tormented me – no! Conscience is something apart and I don’t take any notice of it. It can be easily stifled by arguing how accommodating it can be. When reason doesn’t function I deaden my conscience with wine and women. With women I am as successful as ever, but that’s by the by. However, something else was tormenting me: all that time I thought it strange that people should look upon me as an ordinary individual. Throughout those entire eight years not once has a single soul ever given me a questioning look. I thought it strange that I didn’t need to hide away. There was a terrible secret lurking within me – and suddenly there I was, walking down the street, attending dinners, parties, flirting with women! For one guilty of a crime such a situation is unnatural and distressing. I wouldn’t have suffered so much if I’d simply had to hide and dissemble. Mine is a psychosis, old man! Finally, I was gripped by a kind of passion… I suddenly wanted to unburden myself somehow – to sneeze on everyone’s head, to blurt out my secret to everyone, to do something of that sort, something special. And so I wrote this story, a document in which only a fool would have difficulty in seeing that I’m a man with a secret. There isn’t one page that doesn’t give a clue to the solution. Isn’t that so? I dare say you realized that at once. When I was writing it I took the average reader’s level of intelligence into consideration.’
Once again we were interrupted. Andrey entered with two glasses of tea on a tray. I hastily sent him away.
‘And now everything seems easier,’ Kamyshev laughed. ‘You look at me now as if I’m someone out of the ordinary, as if I’m a man with a secret – and I feel my situation is perfectly normal! But it’s already three o’clock and they’re waiting for me in the cab.’
‘Stop… put your hat down… You told me what prompted you to become an author. Now tell me how you came to commit the murder.’
‘Would you like to know that, as a supplement to what you’ve read? All right… I murdered in a mad fit of passion. Nowadays people smoke and drink tea under the influence of fits of passion. Just now you got so worked up you picked up my glass instead of yours – and you’re smoking more than you did before. Life is one continuous aberration – that’s how it strikes me. When I went into the forest thoughts of murder were far from my mind. I was going there with only one purpose: to find Olga and carry on hurting her. When I’m drunk I always feel the need to hurt people. I met her about two hundred paces from the forest edge. She was standing under a tree, gazing pensively at the sky. I called out to her… when she saw me she smiled and stretched her arms out. “Don’t be hard on me,” she said. “I’m so unhappy.”
That evening she looked so lovely that, drunk as I was, I forgot everything in the world and firmly embraced her. She vowed that she had never loved anyone but me – and that was true: she did love me. And at the height of her vows she suddenly took it into her head to utter the hateful phrase: “I’m so unhappy! If I hadn’t married Urbenin I could marry the Count right now!” For me this phrase was like a bucket of cold water. All that had been seething within me suddenly erupted. Seized by a feeling of revulsion and despair, I grasped that small, loathsome creature by the shoulder and threw her to the ground as if she were a ball. My anger had reached boiling point. Well, I finished her… I just went and finished her… Now you’ll understand what happened with Kuzma.’
I glanced at Kamyshev. On his face I could detect neither remorse nor regret. ‘I just went and finished her’ was said as nonchalantly as ‘I just smoked a cigarette’. And I in turn was gripped by a feeling of anger and revulsion. I turned away.
‘And is this Urbenin doing hard labour in Siberia now?’ I quickly asked.
‘Well, they say he died on the way, but it hasn’t been confirmed yet. What of it?’
‘I’ll tell you what. An innocent man has suffered and all you can say is “What of it?’