Dowd Siobhan - The London Eye Mystery 8 page

awaited him such as he had never known before.

He stood and gazed and could not believe his eyes: the door, the outer

door from the stairs, at which he had not long before waited and rung,

was standing unfastened and at least six inches open. No lock, no bolt,

all the time, all that time! The old woman had not shut it after him

perhaps as a precaution. But, good God! Why, he had seen Lizaveta

afterwards! And how could he, how could he have failed to reflect that

she must have come in somehow! She could not have come through the wall!

He dashed to the door and fastened the latch.

"But no, the wrong thing again! I must get away, get away...."

He unfastened the latch, opened the door and began listening on the

staircase.

He listened a long time. Somewhere far away, it might be in the gateway,

two voices were loudly and shrilly shouting, quarrelling and scolding.

"What are they about?" He waited patiently. At last all was still, as

though suddenly cut off; they had separated. He was meaning to go out,

but suddenly, on the floor below, a door was noisily opened and someone

began going downstairs humming a tune. "How is it they all make such

a noise?" flashed through his mind. Once more he closed the door and

waited. At last all was still, not a soul stirring. He was just taking a

step towards the stairs when he heard fresh footsteps.

The steps sounded very far off, at the very bottom of the stairs, but

he remembered quite clearly and distinctly that from the first sound he

began for some reason to suspect that this was someone coming _there_,

to the fourth floor, to the old woman. Why? Were the sounds somehow

peculiar, significant? The steps were heavy, even and unhurried. Now

_he_ had passed the first floor, now he was mounting higher, it was

growing more and more distinct! He could hear his heavy breathing. And

now the third storey had been reached. Coming here! And it seemed to

him all at once that he was turned to stone, that it was like a dream

in which one is being pursued, nearly caught and will be killed, and is

rooted to the spot and cannot even move one's arms.

At last when the unknown was mounting to the fourth floor, he suddenly

started, and succeeded in slipping neatly and quickly back into the

flat and closing the door behind him. Then he took the hook and softly,

noiselessly, fixed it in the catch. Instinct helped him. When he had

done this, he crouched holding his breath, by the door. The unknown

visitor was by now also at the door. They were now standing opposite one

another, as he had just before been standing with the old woman, when

the door divided them and he was listening.

The visitor panted several times. "He must be a big, fat man," thought

Raskolnikov, squeezing the axe in his hand. It seemed like a dream

indeed. The visitor took hold of the bell and rang it loudly.

As soon as the tin bell tinkled, Raskolnikov seemed to be aware of

something moving in the room. For some seconds he listened quite

seriously. The unknown rang again, waited and suddenly tugged violently

and impatiently at the handle of the door. Raskolnikov gazed in horror

at the hook shaking in its fastening, and in blank terror expected every

minute that the fastening would be pulled out. It certainly did seem

possible, so violently was he shaking it. He was tempted to hold the

fastening, but _he_ might be aware of it. A giddiness came over him

again. "I shall fall down!" flashed through his mind, but the unknown

began to speak and he recovered himself at once.

"What's up? Are they asleep or murdered? D-damn them!" he bawled in a

thick voice, "Hey, Alyona Ivanovna, old witch! Lizaveta Ivanovna, hey,

my beauty! open the door! Oh, damn them! Are they asleep or what?"

And again, enraged, he tugged with all his might a dozen times at

the bell. He must certainly be a man of authority and an intimate

acquaintance.

At this moment light hurried steps were heard not far off, on the

stairs. Someone else was approaching. Raskolnikov had not heard them at

first.

"You don't say there's no one at home," the new-comer cried in a

cheerful, ringing voice, addressing the first visitor, who still went on

pulling the bell. "Good evening, Koch."

"From his voice he must be quite young," thought Raskolnikov.

"Who the devil can tell? I've almost broken the lock," answered Koch.

"But how do you come to know me?

"Why! The day before yesterday I beat you three times running at

billiards at Gambrinus'."

"Oh!"

"So they are not at home? That's queer. It's awfully stupid though.

Where could the old woman have gone? I've come on business."

"Yes; and I have business with her, too."

"Well, what can we do? Go back, I suppose, Aie--aie! And I was hoping to

get some money!" cried the young man.

"We must give it up, of course, but what did she fix this time for? The

old witch fixed the time for me to come herself. It's out of my way.

And where the devil she can have got to, I can't make out. She sits here

from year's end to year's end, the old hag; her legs are bad and yet

here all of a sudden she is out for a walk!"

"Hadn't we better ask the porter?"

"What?"

"Where she's gone and when she'll be back."

"Hm.... Damn it all!... We might ask.... But you know she never does go

anywhere."

And he once more tugged at the door-handle.

"Damn it all. There's nothing to be done, we must go!"

"Stay!" cried the young man suddenly. "Do you see how the door shakes if

you pull it?"

"Well?"

"That shows it's not locked, but fastened with the hook! Do you hear how

the hook clanks?"

"Well?"

"Why, don't you see? That proves that one of them is at home. If they

were all out, they would have locked the door from the outside with the

key and not with the hook from inside. There, do you hear how the hook

is clanking? To fasten the hook on the inside they must be at home,

don't you see. So there they are sitting inside and don't open the

door!"

"Well! And so they must be!" cried Koch, astonished. "What are they

about in there?" And he began furiously shaking the door.

"Stay!" cried the young man again. "Don't pull at it! There must be

something wrong.... Here, you've been ringing and pulling at the door

and still they don't open! So either they've both fainted or..."

"What?"

"I tell you what. Let's go fetch the porter, let him wake them up."

"All right."

Both were going down.

"Stay. You stop here while I run down for the porter."

"What for?"

"Well, you'd better."

"All right."

"I'm studying the law you see! It's evident, e-vi-dent there's something

wrong here!" the young man cried hotly, and he ran downstairs.

Koch remained. Once more he softly touched the bell which gave one

tinkle, then gently, as though reflecting and looking about him, began

touching the door-handle pulling it and letting it go to make sure once

more that it was only fastened by the hook. Then puffing and panting he

bent down and began looking at the keyhole: but the key was in the lock

on the inside and so nothing could be seen.

Raskolnikov stood keeping tight hold of the axe. He was in a sort of

delirium. He was even making ready to fight when they should come in.

While they were knocking and talking together, the idea several times

occurred to him to end it all at once and shout to them through the

door. Now and then he was tempted to swear at them, to jeer at them,

while they could not open the door! "Only make haste!" was the thought

that flashed through his mind.

"But what the devil is he about?..." Time was passing, one minute, and

another--no one came. Koch began to be restless.

"What the devil?" he cried suddenly and in impatience deserting his

sentry duty, he, too, went down, hurrying and thumping with his heavy

boots on the stairs. The steps died away.

"Good heavens! What am I to do?"

Raskolnikov unfastened the hook, opened the door--there was no sound.

Abruptly, without any thought at all, he went out, closing the door as

thoroughly as he could, and went downstairs.

He had gone down three flights when he suddenly heard a loud voice

below--where could he go! There was nowhere to hide. He was just going

back to the flat.

"Hey there! Catch the brute!"

Somebody dashed out of a flat below, shouting, and rather fell than ran

down the stairs, bawling at the top of his voice.

"Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Blast him!"

The shout ended in a shriek; the last sounds came from the yard; all was

still. But at the same instant several men talking loud and fast began

noisily mounting the stairs. There were three or four of them. He

distinguished the ringing voice of the young man. "They!"

Filled with despair he went straight to meet them, feeling "come what

must!" If they stopped him--all was lost; if they let him pass--all was

lost too; they would remember him. They were approaching; they were only

a flight from him--and suddenly deliverance! A few steps from him on the

right, there was an empty flat with the door wide open, the flat on the

second floor where the painters had been at work, and which, as though

for his benefit, they had just left. It was they, no doubt, who had just

run down, shouting. The floor had only just been painted, in the middle

of the room stood a pail and a broken pot with paint and brushes. In one

instant he had whisked in at the open door and hidden behind the wall

and only in the nick of time; they had already reached the landing.

Then they turned and went on up to the fourth floor, talking loudly. He

waited, went out on tiptoe and ran down the stairs.

No one was on the stairs, nor in the gateway. He passed quickly through

the gateway and turned to the left in the street.

He knew, he knew perfectly well that at that moment they were at the

flat, that they were greatly astonished at finding it unlocked, as

the door had just been fastened, that by now they were looking at the

bodies, that before another minute had passed they would guess and

completely realise that the murderer had just been there, and had

succeeded in hiding somewhere, slipping by them and escaping. They would

guess most likely that he had been in the empty flat, while they were

going upstairs. And meanwhile he dared not quicken his pace much, though

the next turning was still nearly a hundred yards away. "Should he

slip through some gateway and wait somewhere in an unknown street? No,

hopeless! Should he fling away the axe? Should he take a cab? Hopeless,

hopeless!"

At last he reached the turning. He turned down it more dead than alive.

Here he was half way to safety, and he understood it; it was less risky

because there was a great crowd of people, and he was lost in it like a

grain of sand. But all he had suffered had so weakened him that he could

scarcely move. Perspiration ran down him in drops, his neck was all wet.

"My word, he has been going it!" someone shouted at him when he came out

on the canal bank.

He was only dimly conscious of himself now, and the farther he went the

worse it was. He remembered however, that on coming out on to the canal

bank, he was alarmed at finding few people there and so being more

conspicuous, and he had thought of turning back. Though he was almost

falling from fatigue, he went a long way round so as to get home from

quite a different direction.

He was not fully conscious when he passed through the gateway of his

house! he was already on the staircase before he recollected the axe.

And yet he had a very grave problem before him, to put it back and to

escape observation as far as possible in doing so. He was of course

incapable of reflecting that it might perhaps be far better not to

restore the axe at all, but to drop it later on in somebody's yard. But

it all happened fortunately, the door of the porter's room was closed

but not locked, so that it seemed most likely that the porter was at

home. But he had so completely lost all power of reflection that he

walked straight to the door and opened it. If the porter had asked him,

"What do you want?" he would perhaps have simply handed him the axe. But

again the porter was not at home, and he succeeded in putting the axe

back under the bench, and even covering it with the chunk of wood as

before. He met no one, not a soul, afterwards on the way to his room;

the landlady's door was shut. When he was in his room, he flung himself

on the sofa just as he was--he did not sleep, but sank into blank

forgetfulness. If anyone had come into his room then, he would have

jumped up at once and screamed. Scraps and shreds of thoughts were

simply swarming in his brain, but he could not catch at one, he could

not rest on one, in spite of all his efforts....

PART II

CHAPTER I

So he lay a very long while. Now and then he seemed to wake up, and at

such moments he noticed that it was far into the night, but it did not

occur to him to get up. At last he noticed that it was beginning to get

light. He was lying on his back, still dazed from his recent oblivion.

Fearful, despairing cries rose shrilly from the street, sounds which he

heard every night, indeed, under his window after two o'clock. They woke

him up now.

"Ah! the drunken men are coming out of the taverns," he thought, "it's

past two o'clock," and at once he leaped up, as though someone had

pulled him from the sofa.

"What! Past two o'clock!"

He sat down on the sofa--and instantly recollected everything! All at

once, in one flash, he recollected everything.

For the first moment he thought he was going mad. A dreadful chill came

over him; but the chill was from the fever that had begun long before in

his sleep. Now he was suddenly taken with violent shivering, so that his

teeth chattered and all his limbs were shaking. He opened the door and

began listening--everything in the house was asleep. With amazement he

gazed at himself and everything in the room around him, wondering how he

could have come in the night before without fastening the door, and have

flung himself on the sofa without undressing, without even taking his

hat off. It had fallen off and was lying on the floor near his pillow.

"If anyone had come in, what would he have thought? That I'm drunk

but..."

He rushed to the window. There was light enough, and he began hurriedly

looking himself all over from head to foot, all his clothes; were there

no traces? But there was no doing it like that; shivering with cold, he

began taking off everything and looking over again. He turned everything

over to the last threads and rags, and mistrusting himself, went through

his search three times.

But there seemed to be nothing, no trace, except in one place, where

some thick drops of congealed blood were clinging to the frayed edge

of his trousers. He picked up a big claspknife and cut off the frayed

threads. There seemed to be nothing more.

Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things he had taken out of

the old woman's box were still in his pockets! He had not thought till

then of taking them out and hiding them! He had not even thought of them

while he was examining his clothes! What next? Instantly he rushed

to take them out and fling them on the table. When he had pulled out

everything, and turned the pocket inside out to be sure there was

nothing left, he carried the whole heap to the corner. The paper had

come off the bottom of the wall and hung there in tatters. He began

stuffing all the things into the hole under the paper: "They're in! All

out of sight, and the purse too!" he thought gleefully, getting up and

gazing blankly at the hole which bulged out more than ever. Suddenly

he shuddered all over with horror; "My God!" he whispered in despair:

"what's the matter with me? Is that hidden? Is that the way to hide

things?"

He had not reckoned on having trinkets to hide. He had only thought of

money, and so had not prepared a hiding-place.

"But now, now, what am I glad of?" he thought, "Is that hiding things?

My reason's deserting me--simply!"

He sat down on the sofa in exhaustion and was at once shaken by another

unbearable fit of shivering. Mechanically he drew from a chair beside

him his old student's winter coat, which was still warm though almost in

rags, covered himself up with it and once more sank into drowsiness and

delirium. He lost consciousness.

Not more than five minutes had passed when he jumped up a second time,

and at once pounced in a frenzy on his clothes again.

"How could I go to sleep again with nothing done? Yes, yes; I have not

taken the loop off the armhole! I forgot it, forgot a thing like that!

Such a piece of evidence!"

He pulled off the noose, hurriedly cut it to pieces and threw the bits

among his linen under the pillow.

"Pieces of torn linen couldn't rouse suspicion, whatever happened; I

think not, I think not, any way!" he repeated, standing in the middle

of the room, and with painful concentration he fell to gazing about

him again, at the floor and everywhere, trying to make sure he had not

forgotten anything. The conviction that all his faculties, even memory,

and the simplest power of reflection were failing him, began to be an

insufferable torture.

"Surely it isn't beginning already! Surely it isn't my punishment coming

upon me? It is!"

The frayed rags he had cut off his trousers were actually lying on the

floor in the middle of the room, where anyone coming in would see them!

"What is the matter with me!" he cried again, like one distraught.

Then a strange idea entered his head; that, perhaps, all his clothes

were covered with blood, that, perhaps, there were a great many

stains, but that he did not see them, did not notice them because

his perceptions were failing, were going to pieces... his reason was

clouded.... Suddenly he remembered that there had been blood on the

purse too. "Ah! Then there must be blood on the pocket too, for I put

the wet purse in my pocket!"

In a flash he had turned the pocket inside out and, yes!--there were

traces, stains on the lining of the pocket!

"So my reason has not quite deserted me, so I still have some sense and

memory, since I guessed it of myself," he thought triumphantly, with

a deep sigh of relief; "it's simply the weakness of fever, a moment's

delirium," and he tore the whole lining out of the left pocket of his

trousers. At that instant the sunlight fell on his left boot; on the

sock which poked out from the boot, he fancied there were traces! He

flung off his boots; "traces indeed! The tip of the sock was soaked with

blood;" he must have unwarily stepped into that pool.... "But what am I

to do with this now? Where am I to put the sock and rags and pocket?"

He gathered them all up in his hands and stood in the middle of the

room.

"In the stove? But they would ransack the stove first of all. Burn them?

But what can I burn them with? There are no matches even. No, better

go out and throw it all away somewhere. Yes, better throw it away," he

repeated, sitting down on the sofa again, "and at once, this minute,

without lingering..."

But his head sank on the pillow instead. Again the unbearable icy

shivering came over him; again he drew his coat over him.

And for a long while, for some hours, he was haunted by the impulse to

"go off somewhere at once, this moment, and fling it all away, so that

it may be out of sight and done with, at once, at once!" Several times

he tried to rise from the sofa, but could not.

He was thoroughly waked up at last by a violent knocking at his door.

"Open, do, are you dead or alive? He keeps sleeping here!" shouted

Nastasya, banging with her fist on the door. "For whole days together

he's snoring here like a dog! A dog he is too. Open I tell you. It's

past ten."

"Maybe he's not at home," said a man's voice.

"Ha! that's the porter's voice.... What does he want?"

He jumped up and sat on the sofa. The beating of his heart was a

positive pain.

"Then who can have latched the door?" retorted Nastasya. "He's taken to

bolting himself in! As if he were worth stealing! Open, you stupid, wake

up!"

"What do they want? Why the porter? All's discovered. Resist or open?

Come what may!..."

He half rose, stooped forward and unlatched the door.

His room was so small that he could undo the latch without leaving the

bed. Yes; the porter and Nastasya were standing there.

Nastasya stared at him in a strange way. He glanced with a defiant and

desperate air at the porter, who without a word held out a grey folded

paper sealed with bottle-wax.

"A notice from the office," he announced, as he gave him the paper.

"From what office?"

"A summons to the police office, of course. You know which office."

"To the police?... What for?..."

"How can I tell? You're sent for, so you go."

The man looked at him attentively, looked round the room and turned to

go away.

"He's downright ill!" observed Nastasya, not taking her eyes off him.

The porter turned his head for a moment. "He's been in a fever since

yesterday," she added.

Raskolnikov made no response and held the paper in his hands, without

opening it. "Don't you get up then," Nastasya went on compassionately,

seeing that he was letting his feet down from the sofa. "You're ill, and

so don't go; there's no such hurry. What have you got there?"

He looked; in his right hand he held the shreds he had cut from his

trousers, the sock, and the rags of the pocket. So he had been asleep

with them in his hand. Afterwards reflecting upon it, he remembered that

half waking up in his fever, he had grasped all this tightly in his hand

and so fallen asleep again.

"Look at the rags he's collected and sleeps with them, as though he has

got hold of a treasure..."

And Nastasya went off into her hysterical giggle.

Instantly he thrust them all under his great coat and fixed his

eyes intently upon her. Far as he was from being capable of rational

reflection at that moment, he felt that no one would behave like that

with a person who was going to be arrested. "But... the police?"

"You'd better have some tea! Yes? I'll bring it, there's some left."

"No... I'm going; I'll go at once," he muttered, getting on to his feet.

"Why, you'll never get downstairs!"

"Yes, I'll go."

"As you please."

She followed the porter out.

At once he rushed to the light to examine the sock and the rags.

"There are stains, but not very noticeable; all covered with dirt,

and rubbed and already discoloured. No one who had no suspicion could

distinguish anything. Nastasya from a distance could not have noticed,

thank God!" Then with a tremor he broke the seal of the notice and began

reading; he was a long while reading, before he understood. It was an

ordinary summons from the district police-station to appear that day at

half-past nine at the office of the district superintendent.

"But when has such a thing happened? I never have anything to do with

the police! And why just to-day?" he thought in agonising bewilderment.

"Good God, only get it over soon!"

He was flinging himself on his knees to pray, but broke into

laughter--not at the idea of prayer, but at himself.

He began, hurriedly dressing. "If I'm lost, I am lost, I don't care!

Shall I put the sock on?" he suddenly wondered, "it will get dustier

still and the traces will be gone."

But no sooner had he put it on than he pulled it off again in loathing

and horror. He pulled it off, but reflecting that he had no other socks,

he picked it up and put it on again--and again he laughed.

"That's all conventional, that's all relative, merely a way of looking

at it," he thought in a flash, but only on the top surface of his

mind, while he was shuddering all over, "there, I've got it on! I have

finished by getting it on!"

But his laughter was quickly followed by despair.

"No, it's too much for me..." he thought. His legs shook. "From fear,"

he muttered. His head swam and ached with fever. "It's a trick! They

want to decoy me there and confound me over everything," he mused, as

he went out on to the stairs--"the worst of it is I'm almost

light-headed... I may blurt out something stupid..."

On the stairs he remembered that he was leaving all the things just as

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 598