She Lover of Death: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin (32 page)

‘Listen carefully and remember everything,’ Genji told me, ‘so that you can present everything as clearly as possible in your report afterwards.’

Allow me to say that I took my obligations as a witness seriously. I had brought from home the pencil and notebook previously acquired on your advice. If I had not been so prudent, it would not be easy for me now to reconstruct so precisely everything that was said.

At first Blagovolsky ran his fingers nervously across the green baize of the desk, but then he made an effort to control himself, put his left hand under the desk and his right hand on the helmet of the Russian folk-hero inkwell and remained in that position.

‘Please be so good as to explain to me what all this is about, gentlemen,’ he said with dignity. ‘You would appear to be accusing me of something.’

Genji tried to turn his chair, but it proved to be too massive, and the ends of its thick legs were buried in the deep pile of a square rug that evidently must have been made to order – it was an exact fit for the chair. The Stammerer was obliged to sit in a half-turned position.

‘Yes, I accuse you of the most ignoble form of murder – driving people to commit suicide. But I also blame myself, because on two occasions I have made unforgivable mistakes. The first time was here in this very study when you artfully wove truth and falsehood together in the performance that you put on for me, pretending to be a well-intentioned innocent. The second time I allowed myself to be deceived when I mistook the devil’s tail for the devil himself.’ Genji set the Bulldog on the edge of the desk. ‘You are aware of what you are doing, your reason is sound, your actions are thoroughly planned for many moves ahead, but you are insane nonetheless. You are obsessed with power. You admitted this yourself during our previous discussion, with such convincing sincerity and such an innocent expression on your face that I allowed myself to be taken in. Ah, if only I had thought of taking a little of that liquid for analysis on the evening when you broke the goblet! I am sure it was no sleeping draught, but absolutely genuine poison. Otherwise why would you have needed to destroy the evidence? Alas, I have made too many mistakes and the price paid for them has been far too high . . .

‘I understand the mechanism of your insanity,’ Genji continued. ‘You made three attempts to die three times in your life and each time you took fright. You established the suicide club in order to redeem the guilt that you felt for having cheated Death. You threw others instead of yourself into its ravenous jaws, ransomed yourself from Death with the lives of others. How you loved to imagine yourself as the mighty magician Prospero, exalted far above ordinary mortals! I shall never forgive myself for believing your fairytale about saving lost souls. You were not trying to save anyone. On the contrary, you took a romantic passion engendered by our age of crisis – a passion that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred would have passed of its own accord – and skilfully nurtured the young shoot of a love of death. Oh, you are a very skilful gardener and there was no subterfuge that you disdained. You were very inventive in arranging the so-called “Signs”, sometimes exploiting fortuitous circumstances but usually creating them for yourself. You, Blagovolsky, are an excellent psychologist, you unerringly divined the weak spot of every one of your victims. And in addition, I have noticed that you possess considerable skill in the techniques of hypnosis.’

Oh, this was absolutely true! On numerous occasions, I myself had noted the magnetic power possessed by Prospero’s gaze, especially in the gentle illumination of the
brazier
or candles. I always had the feeling that those black eyes could pierce to the very deepest recesses of my soul! Hypnosis – why, naturally, hypnosis explained everything!

‘I became a member of your flock too late,’ Genji continued, ‘I do not know how you drove the photographer Sviridov and the teacher Soimonov to suicide. No doubt each of them received certain “Signs” for which you were responsible, but it is too late now to reconstruct the chain of events. Those who were to die were named by Ophelia during a spiritualist seance. You apparently had nothing to do with it. But I am no novice in such matters, and it was immediately obvious to me that there was a hypnotic connection between you and the medium – you could communicate with her without words. As the spiritualists say, she was tuned to your emanations – a single look, gesture or hint was enough for Ophelia to guess what you wanted. You could implant any thought that you wanted in her mind, the girl was no more than your mouthpiece.’

‘All very lyrical,’ said Blagovolsky, interrupting the address for the prosecution for the first time. ‘And very significant. In my opinion, Mr Genji, it is you who is insane, not I. Do you really think that the authorities will pay any attention to your fantasies?’

He had already recovered from his initial shock. He clasped his fingers together in front of him and stared intently at Genji. A strong man, I thought. It looks as if the Stammerer has met his match.

‘Write, Horatio, write,’ Genji told me. ‘Note down as much detail as possible. Every link in the chain is important here. And the evidence will follow.

‘The double suicide of Moretta and Lycanthrope went very smoothly, and once again there was no apparent criminal involvement. Acting under your hypnotic suggestion or, perhaps, on your direct instructions, Ophelia declared at the seance that a messenger in a white cloak would appear to the Chosen One that night, bringing the word. Your calculations were precisely right: the members of the club were impressionable people, mostly of a hysterical disposition. It is strange, therefore, that only two of them dreamed of a messenger in a white cloak who appeared to them that night. And then, according to the farewell verse, the stranger who appeared to the youth was severe, with black eyes, and he arrived in the usual manner, through the door, while the girl dreamed of someone with bright eyes, who preferred the window, but then who would cavil over the petty details of a mystical vision?’

‘Nonsense,’ Prospero snorted. ‘Irresponsible conjecture. Keep writing, Horatio, keep writing. If I am destined to die at the hands of this madman, let the crime not go unpunished.’

I looked at Genji in confusion, and he smiled reassuringly.

‘Don’t be concerned. We are coming to the evidence now. The first evidence was provided to me by Avaddon, who died the day before I began my investigation. The clues were still perfectly fresh and the murderer had not had time to cover his tracks.’

‘Murderer?’ I exclaimed. ‘So the student was murdered?’

‘As surely as if he had been hanged on a gallows. It began, like the previous cases, with a sentence pronounced by Ophelia under hypnosis. And the business was brought to its conclusion by Signs: the howling of a Beast or, rather, a terrifying, inhuman voice repeating something that sounded like “go, go”. The voice was heard by the neighbours next door, so it could not possibly have been a hallucination. I examined the flat very carefully and discovered something rather curious. The hinges and keyhole of the door leading to the back staircase had been oiled very thoroughly, and very recently too. I inspected the lock with a magnifying glass and discovered fresh scratches showing that it had been opened with a key several times, and always from the outside, but no key had ever been inserted in the keyhole from the inside. I could not possibly imagine that the occupant of the flat had lived with the door on to the back staircase unlocked all the time. Therefore, someone must have unlocked it, entered the flat, done something there and quickly withdrawn.

‘The next time I visited the flat I went under cover of night and conducted a more exhaustive search, hoping to discover traces of some technical device capable of producing sound. Under the upper cornice of the kitchen window I found two lead pipes like those that are used in pneumatic alarms. They were both artfully concealed under the plaster and had openings that were stopped with corks. I removed the corks, but nothing happened. I had almost decided that they be must some innovative kind of ventilation system, when a gust of wind shook the window pane, and I distinctly heard a low, hollow wail: “G-o-o-o, g-o-o-o”. In the dark gloom of the flat it was genuinely terrifying. There was no doubt at all that the sound was produced by the concealed pipes. I replaced the corks, and the wailing immediately stopped. The ancient Egyptians used to employ something rather similar in the pyramids to prevent robbers from desecrating the sarcophagi. Combinations of pipes of different forms, installed where there was a draught, could produce entire words and even phrases. You used to be an engineer, Mr Blagovolsky, and rather a talented one, I believe. It would have been easy for you to design an essentially very simple structure like this. And that explained the mystery of the back entrance. In order to drive the occupant of the flat into suicide, the intruder entered the kitchen on a wild, windy night, removed the corks from the pipes and then calmly left, quite confident of the result of his actions. I knew that you had rented and furnished the flat for the poor student. That is one. The neighbours testified that the Beast did not fall quiet until morning, although Nikifor Sipyaga hanged himself some time before dawn. That is two. Why, one wonders, would the Beast continue calling on him to leave this world when he was already in the next one? I recalled you having told me that you felt concerned about Avaddon and you set out to visit him at the crack of dawn. That was when you closed the openings in the pipes. And that is three.’

‘Well now, the pipes are genuine evidence,’ Blagovolsky admitted. ‘But the question is, against whom? Yes, I helped the poor student with his lodgings. And I was the first to find the body. Is that suspicious? Possibly. But no more than that. No, no, Mr Prince, you have not proven my guilt. Poor Avaddon was one of the incurable cases. No one could have saved him from suicide. He only needed a pretext to lay hands on himself.’

Even so, I could see that Genji’s arguments had had an effect on the Doge – he started fidgeting again and reached out to touch the bronze inkwell, as if it could help him.

Genji got up out of his chair and started walking round the room.

‘But what about Ophelia? Do you also classify her as an “incurable case”? The young girl had absolutely no desire to die, she was simply fascinated by everything mysterious and inexplicable. She really did possess abilities that modern science is unable to define and analyse. And you exploited her gift to the full. When I led the seance instead of you and summoned the spirit of Avaddon, Ophelia’s incredible sensitivity allowed her to sense or guess what I wanted. In the East they believe that powerful feelings can be preserved for a long time. A strong outpouring of positive or negative energy always leaves its mark. That is the reason why certain places are “cursed” or “blessed”. They possess a specific aura. And people like Ophelia possess the rare ability to sense this aura. As she went into her trance, the girl sensed the fear, horror and hopelessness that Avaddon felt during the final minutes of his life. Perhaps the mention of “howling” and a “beast” was simply prompted by Avaddon’s farewell poem and there was nothing mystical involved, but you were frightened. What if Ophelia, with her exceptional gifts, should happen to sense foul play? For after all, Blagovolsky, despite your cynical manipulation of human superstition, in your heart you yourself are a mystic and you believe in all sorts of dark supernatural nonsense.’

I thought I saw Prospero shudder at that point, but I cannot vouch for it. Genji sat back down in his chair.

‘Bravo,’ he said. ‘You are cautious. I deliberately left the revolver on the desk, then stood up and moved away a little, hoping that you would try to kill me. I have my trusty Herstahl in my pocket, and I would have put a hole in your head with a perfectly clear conscience, and then our pointless conversation would have been at an end.’

‘Why is it pointless?’ I asked. ‘You wish Mr Blagovolsky to be put on trial, do you not?’

‘I am afraid that trying him will do more harm than good,’ Genji sighed. ‘A sensational trial with glib speeches from eloquent advocates, an imposing defendant, a horde of reporters. What wonderful publicity for other would-be fishers of souls! The judgement of the court is hardly likely to frighten them.’

‘From what I have heard so far, only one judgement could be passed – innocent,’ Blagovolsky said with a shrug. ‘And your trap with the revolver is simply farcical. Do I look like a total dunce? You’d better get on with your story. You tell it rather well.’

Genji nodded imperturbably.

‘Indeed, let us go on. After the spiritualist seance that I led, you decided Ophelia was becoming too dangerous. What if she told someone about the hypnotic commands that you sent to her? It is not such a rare thing for a subject to break free of a hypnotist’s control. So far the girl was still only under your influence, but during the seance you saw that she submitted to the will of another controller with equal ease . . . What I could not understand was how it was possible to drive someone who had no intention at all of killing herself to commit suicide? I found the answer to this question in Ophelia’s implicit faith in supernatural phenomena, her irrational, unconditional submission to the Miraculous and, in general, the undoubtedly anomalous workings of her psyche – these were factors that the criminal could have exploited. And he only needed a few moments to put his plan into action. The girl returned home, happy and full of the joy of life, and went into her room, only to come back out almost immediately, transformed beyond all recognition. She said goodbye to her mother, walked to the bank of the river and threw herself into the water . . . There was one thing Ophelia had said that I could not get out of my mind – that she had been given a sign like the one sent to King Balthazar. And then I had an idea. I went to her house at night and cut the outer pane out of the window of her bedroom. The poor widow must have been surprised in the morning when she discovered that it had mysteriously disappeared. When I shone ultraviolet light through the glass I discovered a blurred, but perfectly legible inscription made with phosphorescent ink. This is a copy that I made of it.’