Part 17

The results of the post-mortem examination, made by “Screw” and the district doctor in my presence on the day after Olga's death, were set down in a very long report, of which I give here only a general outline. The doctors found that the external injuries were as follows: on the left side of the head, at the juncture of the temporal and the parietal bones, there was a wound of about one and a-half inches in length that went as far as the bone. The edges of the wound were not smooth nor rectilinear. . . . It had been inflicted by a blunt instrument, probably as we subsequently decided by the haft of the dagger. On the neck at the level of the lower cervical vertebræ a red line was visible that had the form of a semicircle and extended across the back half of the neck. On the whole length of this line there were injuries to the skin and slight bruises. On the left arm, an inch and a half above the wrist, four blue spots were found. One was on the back of the hand and the three others on the lower side. They were caused by pressure, probably of fingers. . . . This was confirmed by the little scratch made by a nail that was visible on one spot. The reader will remember that the place where these spots were found corresponds with the place where the left sleeve and the left cuff of the bodice of the riding-habit were torn. . . . Between the fourth and fifth ribs on an imaginary vertical line drawn from the centre of the armpit there was a large gaping wound of an inch in length. The edges were smooth, as if cut and steeped with liquid and clotted blood. . . . The wound was deep. . . . It was made by a sharp instrument, and as it appeared from the preliminary information, by the dagger which exactly corresponded in width with the size of the wound.

The interior examination gave as result a wound in the right lung and the pleura, inflammation of the lung and hemorrhage in the cavity of the pleura.

As far as I can remember, the doctors arrived approximately at the following conclusion: (_a_) death was caused by anæmia consequent on a great loss of blood; the loss of blood was explained by the presence of a gaping wound on the right side of the breast. (_b_) the wound on the head must be considered a serious injury, and the wound in the breast as undoubtedly mortal; the latter must be reckoned as the immediate cause of death. (_c_) The wound on the head was given with a blunt instrument; the wound in the breast by a sharp and probably a double-edged one. (_d_) the deceased could not have inflicted all the above-mentioned injuries upon herself with her own hand; and (_e_) there probably had been no offence against feminine honour.

In order not to put it off till Doomsday and then repeat myself, I will give the reader at once the picture of the murder I sketched while under the impression of the first inspections, two or three examinations, and the perusal of the report of the post-mortem examination.

Olga, having left the rest of the party, walked about the wood. Lost in a reverie or plunged in her own sad thoughts—the reader will remember her mood on that ill-fated evening—she wandered deep into the forest. There she was met by the murderer. When she was standing under a tree, occupied with her own thoughts, the man came up and spoke to her. . . . This man did not awaken suspicions in her, otherwise she would have called for help, but that cry would not have been heart-rending. While talking to her the murderer seized hold of her left arm with such strength that he tore the sleeve of her bodice and her chemise and left a mark in the form of four spots. It was at that moment probably that she shrieked, and this was the shriek heard by the party. . . . She shrieked from pain and evidently because she read in the face and movements of the murderer what his intentions were. Either wishing that she should not shriek again, or perhaps acting under the influence of wrathful feelings, he seized the breast of her dress near the collar, which is proved by the two upper buttons that were torn off and the red line the doctors found on her body. The murderer in clutching at her breast and shaking her, had tightened the gold watch-chain she wore round her neck. . . . The friction and the pressure of the chain produced the red line. Then the murderer dealt her a blow on the head with some blunt weapon, for example, a stick or even the scabbard of the dagger that hung from Olga's girdle. Then flying into a passion, or finding that one wound was insufficient, he drew the dagger and plunged it into her right side with force—I say with force, because the dagger was blunt.

This was the gloomy aspect of the picture that I had the right to draw on the strength of the above-mentioned data. The question who was the murderer was evidently not difficult to determine and seemed to resolve itself. First the murderer was not guided by covetous motives but something else. . . . Therefore it was impossible to suspect some wandering vagabond or ragamuffin, who might be fishing in the lake. The shriek of his victim could not have disarmed a robber: to take off the brooch and the watch was the work of a second.

Secondly, Olga had purposely not told me the name of the murderer, which she would not have done if the murderer had been a common robber. Evidently the murderer was dear to her, and she did not wish that he should suffer severe punishment on her account. . . . Such people could only have been her mad father; her husband, whom she did not love, but before whom she felt herself guilty; or the Count, to whom perhaps in her soul she felt under obligations. . . . Her mad father was sitting at home in his little house in the forest on the evening of the murder, as his servant affirmed afterwards, composing a letter to the chief of the district police, requesting him to overcome the imaginary robbers who surrounded his house day and night. . . . The Count had never left his guests before and at the moment the murder was committed. Therefore, the whole weight of suspicion fell on unfortunate Urbenin. His unexpected appearance, his mien, and all the rest could only serve as good evidence.

Thirdly, during the last months Olga's life had been one continuous romance. And this romance was of the sort that usually ends with crime and capital punishment. An old, doting husband, unfaithfulness, jealousy, blows, flight to the lover-Count, two months after the marriage. . . . If the beautiful heroine of such a romance is killed, do not look for robbers or rascals, but search for the heroes of the romance. On this third count the most suitable hero-murderer was again Urbenin.

XXVIII

I made the preliminary examinations in the mosaic room in which I had loved at one time to loll on the soft divan and pay court to gipsies.

The first person I examined was Urbenin. He was brought to me from Olga's room, where he continued to sit on a stool in a corner and never removed his eyes from the empty bed. . . . For a moment he stood before me in silence, looking at me with indifference, then probably thinking that I wanted to speak to him in my character of examining magistrate, he said in the tired voice of a man who was broken by grief and anguish:

“Sergei Petrovich, examine the other witnesses first, please, and me afterwards. . . . I can't . . .”

Urbenin considered himself a witness, or thought that he would be considered one. . . .

“No, I require to examine you just now,” I said. “Be seated, please. . . .”

Urbenin sat down opposite to me and bent his head. He was weary and ill, he answered reluctantly, and it was only with difficulty I was able to squeeze his deposition out of him.

He deposed that he was Pëtr Egorych Urbenin, nobleman, fifty years of age, belonging to the Orthodox Faith. That he owned an estate in the neighbouring K—— district where he belonged to the electorate, and had served for the last triennials as honorary magistrate. Being ruined, he had mortgaged his estate and had considered it necessary to go into service. He had entered the Count's service as bailiff six years ago. Liking agriculture, he was not ashamed of being in the service of a private individual, and considered that it was only the foolish who were ashamed of work. He received his salary from the Count regularly, and he had nothing to complain of. He had a son and daughter from his first marriage, etc., etc., etc.

He had married Olga because he was passionately in love with her. He had struggled long and painfully with his feelings, but neither common sense nor the logic of a practical elderly mind—in fact, nothing had effect: he was obliged to succumb to his feelings and he got married. He knew that Olga did not marry him for love, but considering her to be moral in the highest degree, he decided to content himself with her faithfulness and friendship, which he had hoped to merit.

When he came to the place where his disenchantment and the wrongs done to his grey hairs began, Urbenin asked permission not to speak of “the past which God will forgive her” or at least to defer the conversation about that to a future time.

“I can't. . . . It's hard. . . . Besides, you yourself saw it.”

“Very well, let us leave it for another time. . . . Only tell me now, did you beat your wife? It is reported that one day, finding a note from the Count in her possession, you struck her. . . .”

“That is not true. . . . I only seized her by the arm, she began to cry, and that same evening she went to complain. . . .”

“Did you know of her connexion with the Count?”

“I have begged that this subject should be deferred. . . . And what is the use of it?”

“Answer me only this one question, which is of great importance. . . . Was your wife's connexion with the Count known to you?”

“Undoubtedly. . . .”

“I shall write that down, and all the rest concerning your wife's unfaithfulness can be left for the next time. . . . Now we will revert to another question. Will you explain to me how it came that you were in the forest where Olga Nikolaevna was murdered? . . . You were as you say, in the town. . . . How did you appear in the forest?”

“Yes, sir, I had been living in town with a cousin ever since I lost my place. . . . I passed my time in looking for a place and in drinking to forget my sorrows. . . . I had been drinking specially hard this last month. For example, I can't remember what happened last week as I was always drunk. . . . The day before yesterday I got drunk too. . . . In a word I am lost. . . . Irremediably lost! . . .”

“You wanted to tell me how it was that you appeared yesterday in the forest?”

“Yes, sir. . . . I awoke yesterday morning early, about four o'clock. . . . My head was aching from the previous day's drink, I had pains in all my limbs as if I had fever. . . . I lay on my bed and saw through the window the sun rise, and I remembered . . . many things. . . . A weight was on my heart. . . . Suddenly I wanted to see her . . . to see her once more, perhaps for the last time. I was seized by wrath and melancholy. . . . I drew from my pocket the hundred-rouble note the Count had sent me. I looked at it, and then trampled it underfoot. . . . I trampled on it till I decided to go and fling this charity into his face. However hungry and ragged I may be, I cannot sell my honour, and every attempt to buy it I consider a personal insult. So you see, sir, I wanted to have a look at Olga and fling the money into the ugly mug of that seducer. And this longing overpowered me to such an extent that I almost went out of my mind. I had no money to drive here; I could not spend _his_ hundred roubles on myself. I started on foot. By good luck a muzhik I know overtook me, and drove me eighteen versts for ten kopecks, otherwise I might still have been trudging along. The muzhik set me down in Tenevo. From there I came here on foot and arrived about four o'clock.”

“Did anybody see you here at that time?”

“Yes, sir. The watchman, Nikolai, was sitting at the gate and told me the masters were not at home, they had all gone out shooting. I was almost worn out with fatigue, but the desire to see my wife was stronger than my pains. I had to go on foot without a moment's rest to the place where they were shooting. I did not go by the road, but started through the forest. I know every tree, and it would be as difficult for me to lose myself in the Count's forests as it would be in my own house.”

“But going through the forest and not by the road you might have missed the shooting party.”

“No, sir, I kept so close to the road all the time that I could not only hear the shots but the conversations too.”

“Consequently you did not expect to meet your wife in the forest?”

Urbenin looked at me with astonishment, and, after thinking for a short time, he replied:

“Pardon me, but that is a strange question. One can't expect to meet a wolf, and to expect a terrible misfortune is equally impossible. God sends them unexpectedly. For example, this dreadful occurrence. . . . I was walking through the Ol'khovsky wood, not expecting any grief because I have grief enough as it is, when suddenly I heard a strange shriek. The shriek was so piercing that it appeared to me as if somebody had cut into my ear. . . . I ran towards the cry. . . .”

Urbenin's mouth was drawn to one side, his chin trembled, his eyes blinked, and he began to sob.

“I ran towards the cry, and suddenly I saw . . . Olga lying on the ground. Her hair and forehead were bloody, her face terrible. I began to shout, to call her by her name. . . . She did not move. . . . I kissed her, I raised her up. . . .”

Urbenin choked and covered his face with his hands. After a minute he continued:

“I did not see the scoundrel . . . When I was running towards her I heard somebody's hasty footsteps. He was probably running away.”

“All this is an excellent invention, Pëtr Egorych,” I said. “But do you know magistrates have little belief in such rare occurrences as the coincidence of the murder with your accidental walk, etc. It's not badly invented, but it explains very little.”

“What do you mean by invented?” Urbenin asked, opening his eyes wide. “I have invented nothing, sir. . . .”

Suddenly Urbenin got very red and rose.

“It appears that you suspect me. . . .” he mumbled. “Of course, anybody can suspect, but you, Sergei Petrovich, have known me long. . . . It's a sin for you to brand me with such a suspicion. . . . But you know me.”

“I know you, certainly . . . but my private opinion is here of no avail. . . . The law reserves the right of private opinion for the jurymen, the examining magistrate has only to deal with evidence. There is much evidence, Pëtr Egorych.”

Urbenin cast an alarmed look at me and shrugged his shoulders.

“Whatever the evidence may be,” he said, “you must understand. . . . Now, could I? . . . I! Besides whom?! I might be able to kill a quail or a woodcock, but a human being . . . a woman who was dearer to me than life, my salvation . . . the very thought of whom illuminates my gloomy nature like the sun. . . . And suddenly you suspect me!”

Urbenin waved his hand resignedly and sat down again.

“As it is, I long for death, and you wrong me besides! If an unknown functionary wronged me, I'd say nothing, but you, Sergei Petrovich! . . . May I go away, sir?”

“You may. . . . I shall examine you again to-morrow, and in the meantime, Pëtr Egorych, I must put you under arrest. . . . I hope that before to-morrow's examination you will have had time to appreciate the importance of all the evidence there is against you, and you will not waste time uselessly, but confess. I am convinced that Olga Nikolaevna was murdered by you. . . . I have nothing more to say to you to-day. . . . You may go.”

Having said this I bent over my papers. . . . Urbenin looked at me in perplexity, rose, and stretched out his arms in a strange way.

“Are you joking . . . or serious?” he asked.

“This is no time for joking,” I said. “You may go.”

Urbenin remained standing before me. I looked up at him. He was pale and looked with perplexity at my papers.

“Why are your hands blood-stained, Pëtr Egorych?” I asked.

He looked down at his hands on which there still were marks of blood, and he moved his fingers.

“Why there is blood? . . . Hm . . . If this is part of the evidence, it is but poor evidence. . . . When I lifted up blood-stained Olga I could not help dirtying my hands with blood. I was not wearing gloves.”

“You just told me that when you found your wife all bloody, you called for help. . . . How is it that nobody heard your cries?”

“I don't know, I was so stunned by the sight of Olia, that I was unable to cry aloud. . . . Besides, I know nothing. . . . It is useless for me to try to exculpate myself, and it's not in my principles to do so.”

“You would hardly have shouted. . . . Having killed your wife, you ran away, and were terribly astonished when you saw people on the clearing.”

“I never noticed your people. I paid no heed to people.”

With this my examination for that day was concluded. After that Urbenin was confined in one of the outhouses on the Count's estate and watched.

XXIX

On the second or third day the Assistant Public Prosecutor, Polugradov, arrived post-haste from the town; he is a man I cannot think of without spoiling my frame of mind. Imagine a tall, lean man, of about thirty, clean shaven, smartly dressed, and with hair curled like a sheep's; his features were thin, but so dry and unexpressive that it was not difficult to guess the emptiness and foppishness of the individual to whom they belonged; his voice was low, sugary, and mawkishly polite.

He arrived early in the morning, with two portmanteaux in a hired calash. First of all he inquired with a very concerned face, complaining affectedly of fatigue, if a room had been prepared for him in the Count's house. By my orders a small but very cosy and light room had been assigned to him, where everything he might need, beginning with a marble washstand, and ending with matches had been arranged.

“I—I say, my good fellow! Bring me some hot water!” he began while settling down in his room, and fastidiously sniffing the air; “Some hot water, please, I say, young man!”

Before beginning work he washed, dressed, and arranged his hair for a long time; he even brushed his teeth with some sort of red powder, and occupied about three minutes in trimming his sharp, pink nails.

“Well, sir,” he said at last, settling down to work, and turning over the leaves of our report. “What's it all about?”

I told him what was the matter not leaving out a single detail. . . .

“Have you been to the scene of the crime?”

“No, I have not been there yet.”

The Assistant Public Prosecutor frowned, passed his white womanish hand over his freshly washed brow, and began walking about the room.

“I can't understand your reason for not having been there,” he mumbled. “I should suppose that was the first thing that ought to have been done. Did you forget or thought it unnecessary?”

“Neither the one nor the other: yesterday I waited for the police, and intend to go to-day.”

“Now nothing remains there: it has rained all these days, and you have given the criminal time to obliterate his traces. Of course you placed a guard at the spot? No? I don't understand!”

And the dandy shrugged his shoulders authoritatively.

“You'd better drink your tea, it's getting cold,” I said, in a tone of indifference.

“I like it cold.”

The Assistant of the Public Prosecutor bent over the papers, and with a loud sniff he began to read aloud in an undertone, occasionally jotting down his remarks and corrections. Two or three times his mouth was drawn to one side in a sarcastic smile: for some reason neither my official report nor the doctors' pleased this cunning rogue.* In this sleek, well-brushed, and cleanly-washed government official, stuffed full of conceit and a high opinion of his own worth, the pedant was clearly apparent.

* Kamyshev abuses the Assistant Public Prosecutor quite without cause. The only thing in which this prosecutor can be blamed is that his face did not please M. Kamyshev. It would have been more honest to admit inexperience or intentional mistakes.—A. Ch.

By midday we were on the scene of the crime. It was raining hard. Of course we neither found spots nor traces; all had been washed away by the rain. By some chance I found one of the buttons that were missing on Olga's riding habit, and the Assistant Prosecutor picked up a sort of reddish pulp, that subsequently proved to be a red wrapper from a packet of tobacco. At first we stumbled upon a bush which had two twigs broken at one side. The Assistant Prosecutor was delighted at finding these twigs. They might have been broken by the criminal and would therefore indicate the way he had gone after killing Olga. But the joy of the Prosecutor was unfounded: we soon found a number of bushes with broken twigs and nibbled leaves; it turned out that a herd of cattle had passed over the scene of the murder.