Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (482 page)

CHAPTER XXVII

About seven o’clock in the morning the village elder and his assistants, whom I had sent for, arrived. It was impossible to drive to the scene of the crime: the rain that had begun in the night was still pouring down in buckets. Little puddles had become lakes. The grey sky looked gloomy, and there was no promise of sunlight. The soaked trees appeared dejected with their drooping branches, and sprinkled a whole shower of large drops at every gust of wind. It was impossible to go there. Besides, it might have been useless. The trace of the crime, such as bloodstains, human footprints, etc., had probably been washed away during the night. But the formalities demanded that the scene of the crime should be examined, and I deferred this visit until the arrival of the police, and in the meantime I made out a draft of the official report of the case, and occupied myself with the examination of witnesses. First of all I examined the gipsies. The poor singers had passed the whole night sitting up in the ballrooms expecting horses to be sent round to convey them to the station. But horses were not provided; the servants, when asked, only sent them to the devil, warning them at the same time that his Excellency had forbidden anybody to be admitted to him. They were also not given the samovar they asked for in the morning. The perplexing and ambiguous situation in which they found themselves in a strange house in which a corpse was lying, the uncertainty as to when they could get away, and the damp melancholy weather had driven the gipsies, both men and women, into such a state of distress that in one night they had become thin and pale. They wandered about from room to room, evidently much alarmed and expecting some serious issue. By my examination I only increased their anxiety. First because my lengthy examination delayed their departure from the accursed house indefinitely, and secondly because it alarmed them. The simple people, imagining that they were seriously suspected of the murder, began to assure me with tears in their eyes, that they were not guilty and knew nothing about the matter. Tina, seeing me as an official personage, quite forgot our former connection, and while speaking to me trembled and almost fainted with fright like a little girl about to be whipped. In reply to my request not to be excited, and my assurance that I saw in them nothing but witnesses, the assistants of justice, they informed me in one voice that they had never been witnesses, that they knew nothing, and that they trusted that in future God would deliver them from all close acquaintance with ministers of the law.

I asked them by what road they had driven from the station, had they not passed through that part of the forest where the murder had been committed, had any member of their party quitted it for even a short time, and had they not heard Olga’s heartrending shriek. This examination led to nothing. The gipsies, alarmed by it, only sent two members of the chorus to the village to hire vehicles. The poor people wanted terribly to get away. Unfortunately for them there was already much talk in the village about the murder in the forest, and these swarthy messengers were looked at with suspicion; they were arrested and brought to me. It was only towards evening that the harassed chorus was able to get free from this nightmare and breathe freely, as having hired five peasants’ carts at three times the proper fare, they drove away from the Count’s house. Afterwards they were paid for their visit, but nobody paid them for the moral suffering that they had endured in the Count’s apartments...

Having examined them, I made a search in the Scops-Owl’s room.
 
In her trunks I found quantities of all sorts of old woman’s rubbish, but although I looked through all the old caps and darned stockings, I found neither money nor valuables that the old woman had stolen from the Count or his guests... Nor did I find the things that had been stolen from Tina some time before... Evidently the old witch had another hiding-place only known to herself.

I will not give here the preliminary report I drafted about the information I had obtained or the searches I had made... It was long; besides, I have forgotten most of it. I will only give a general idea of it. First of all I described the condition in which I found Olga, and I gave an account of every detail of my examination of her. By this examination it was evident that Olga was quite conscious when she answered me and purposely concealed the name of the murderer. She clearly did not
want
the murderer to suffer the penalty, and this inevitably led to the supposition that the criminal was near and dear to her.

The examination of her clothes, which I made together with the commissary of the rural police who had arrived post-haste, was highly revealing... The jacket of her riding habit, made of velvet with a silk lining, was still moist. The right side in which there was the hole made by the dagger was saturated with blood and in places bore marks of clotted blood... The loss of blood had been very great, and it was astonishing that Olga had not died on the spot. The left side was also blood-stained. The left sleeve was torn at the shoulder and at the wrist... The two upper buttons were torn off, and at our examination we did not find them. The skirt of the riding habit, made of black cashmere, was found to be terribly crumpled; it had been crumpled when they had carried Olga out of the wood to the vehicle and from the vehicle to her bed. Then it had been pulled off, rolled into a disorderly heap, and flung under the bed. It was torn at the waistband. This tear was about ten inches in length, and had probably been made while she was being carried or when it was pulled off; it might also have been made during her lifetime. Olga, who did not like mending, and not knowing to whom to give the habit to be mended, might have hidden away the tear under her bodice. I don’t think any signs could be seen in this of the savage rage of the criminal, on which the assistant public prosecutor laid such special emphasis in his speech at the trial. The right side of the belt and the right-hand pocket were saturated with blood. The pocket-handkerchief and the gloves, that were in this pocket, were like two formless lumps of a rusty colour. The whole of the riding-habit, to the very end of the skirt, was bespattered with spots of blood of various forms and sizes... Most of them, as it was afterwards explained, were the impressions of the blood-stained fingers and palms belonging to the coachmen and lackeys who had carried Olga... The chemise was bloody, especially on the right side on which there was a hole produced by the cut of an instrument. There, as also on the left shoulder of the bodice, and near the wrists there were rents, and the wristband was almost torn off.

The things that Olga had worn, such as her gold watch, a long gold chain, a diamond brooch, ear-rings, rings and a purse containing silver coins, were found with the clothes. It was clear the crime had not been committed with the intent of robbery.

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 or 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 vertebrae 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 revealed a wound in the right lung and the pleura, inflammation of the lung and haemorrhage 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 anaemia 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 was 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 bodice 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 naturally. First the murderer was not guided by covetous motives but something else... It was impossible therefore 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 have done if he had been a common thief. 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 a certain obligation... 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 the 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 likely hero - or murderer - was again Urbenin.

CHAPTER 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:

‘Sergey 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 must examine you at once,’ I said. ‘Be seated, please...’

Urbenin sat down opposite 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 was on the electoral roll, and had served for the last three terms 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 a 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 describe his disenchantment and the wrongs done to his grey hairs, 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 connection 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 connection with the Count known to you?’

‘Certainly...’

‘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, you say, in town... How did you come to be 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 were going to tell me how it was that you came to be in the forest yesterday.’

‘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 a 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 weariness. I set off 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.’

‘So 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 doesn’t
expect
to meet a wolf, any more than one expects to meet a terrible misfortune. God sends them unexpectedly. For example, this dreadful occurrence... I was walking through the Ol’khovsky wood, not on the lookout for trouble because I have enough trouble as it is, when suddenly I heard a strange shriek. The shriek was so piercing that it seemed almost 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 interesting story, Pëtr Egorych,’ I said. ‘But you must know that magistrates are little inclined to believe in such rare occurrences as the coincidence of the murder with your accidental walk, etc. It’s not a bad fabrication, but it explains very little.’

‘What do you mean?’ Urbenin asked, opening his eyes wide, i have fabricated nothing, sir...’

Suddenly Urbenin got very red and rose.

‘It appears that you suspect me...’he mumbled. ‘Of course, anybody can suspect, but you, Sergey Petrovich, have known me long... It’s a sin for you to brand me with such a suspicion... You know me.’

‘I know you, certainly... but my private opinion is here of no avail... The law reserves the right of private opinion to 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 kill?... Could I! And if so, 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 now in addition you traduce me. If some official I didn’t know had spoken thus, I’d say nothing, but you, Sergey Petrovich! May I leave now, sir?’

‘You may... I shall examine you again tomorrow, and in the meantime, Pëtr Egorych, I must put you under arrest... I hope that before tomorrow’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 today... 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.

‘You ask why there is blood?... Hm... If this is part of the evidence, it is but poor evidence... When I lifted up Olga after the murder I could not help my hands becoming bloody. 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 out... Besides, I know nothing... It is useless for me to try to exculpate myself, and it’s against 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 the 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 placed under guard.