“One minute,” I said. “Two small questions.” He opened his mouth to voice his dissatisfaction, but I was ready and didn’t give him a chance. “Approximately when did you leave the dining room, Mr. Moses?”
“Approximately?” he grunted. “This is how you expect to solve the crime? Approximately!… I can give you a precise account. A Moses never does anything approximately, otherwise he wouldn’t be a Moses … Perhaps I might sit?” he asked sarcastically.
“Yes, I beg your pardon.”
“Thank you, Inspector,” he said, even more sarcastically, and sat. “So then, I was with Mrs. Moses, whose room you barged into this very night in such an unpleasant manner, without any right, and not alone either, indeed, without even knocking, to say nothing of a warrant or anything of that nature—naturally I have no right to expect today’s police to respect such legal niceties as the right that every honest man has to his house, that is to say his fortress, particularly, sir, when we’re talking about the wife of a Moses, Albert Moses, Inspector!…”
“Yes, yes, that was reckless,” I said. “My sincerest apologies to you and Mrs. Moses.”
“I am unable to accept your apology, Inspector, until you clarify for me down to the utmost detail who the person settled in room three is (a room belonging to me), on what basis he is in a room adjoining my wife’s bedroom, and why he is being guarded by a dog.”
“We ourselves are not yet clear down to the utmost detail as to who this person is,” I said, again closing my eyes. “His car crashed; he is a cripple, he has one arm, he is currently asleep. As soon as we know anything about who he is, you will be informed, Mr. Moses.” I opened my eyes. “And now, let’s go back to that moment when you and Mrs. Moses left the dining room. When was that exactly?”
He lifted the mug to his lips and stared balefully at me.
“I am satisfied with your explanation,” he declared. “Allow me to express my hope that you will keep your promise and report back immediately.” He took a sip. “Mrs. Moses and I left the table and left the room at approximately—” He narrowed his eyes and with great disdain repeated, “Approximately, Inspector, at twenty-one hours and thirty-three minutes local time. Are you satisfied? Excellent. Let us proceed to your second, and I hope last question.”
“We are not yet completely finished with the first one,” I objected. “So, you left the dining room at twenty-one hours and thirty-three minutes. And then?”
“What ‘then’?” Moses asked angrily. “What are you trying to ask me, young man? You couldn’t possibly want to know what I did when I got back to my room?”
“The investigation would be in your debt, sir,” I said earnestly.
“The investigation? What do I care about your investigation’s thanks? Nevertheless, I have nothing to hide. Having returned to my room, I immediately undressed and went to bed. I then slept up until the time that awful noise and bustle arose in room three (which belongs to me). Only my natural restraint and the consciousness that I was a Moses prevented me from making my way there immediately and dispersing the rabble that the police had gotten together. Keep in mind, however, that my restraint has its limits, I will not tolerate idlers …”
“As is your right,” I said briskly. “One last question, Mr. Moses.”
“The last!” he said, shaking a threatening finger at me.
“Did you notice approximately when Mrs. Moses left the dining room?”
The pause that followed was excruciating. Moses stared at me with bulging eyes, his face turning blue.
“You dare to suggest that the wife of a Moses played a part in the murder?” he said in a choked voice. I shook my head vigorously, but it didn’t help. “And you dare suggest that a Moses in that situation would give you any sort of testimony? Or maybe you do not think that you are dealing with a Moses, sir? Perhaps you have allowed yourself to imagine that you are dealing with a one-armed tramp who stole a valuable gold watch from me? Or perhaps …”
I closed my eyes. Over the course of the next five minutes, I listened to the most incredible barrage of propositions concerning my intentions and designs, my attack on the honor, dignity, property and even physical security of a Moses, sir, which was not some low dog, good merely as a boardinghouse for fleas, but a Moses, Albert Moses, sir—are you capable of understanding that, or not?… By the time this speech was drawing to a close, I had already lost hope of receiving any sort of sensible answer. I realized with despair that now I would never get to question Mrs. Moses. But things took an unexpected turn. Suddenly Moses stopped and waited for me to open my eyes, and then said, with indescribable contempt:
“In any event, it’s absurd of me to ascribe that kind of deviousness to such a nonentity. Absurd, and unworthy of a Moses. Naturally, what we have here is a case of simple police bureaucracy and tactlessness, caused by a low level of cultural and intellectual development. I accept your apologies, sir, and give you a farewell salute. In addition, taking the circumstances into consideration … I understand that you will not have the decency to leave my wife in peace and spare her from your ridiculous questions. Therefore I give you my permission to ask these questions—no more than two questions, sir! In my presence. Quickly. Follow me.”
I followed him, rejoicing inwardly. He knocked on Mrs. Moses’s door and, when she answered it, cooed gratingly:
“May I come in, my dear? I am not alone …”
My dear, he could. She was lying in the same position under the lamp, now completely dressed. She met us with her charming smile. The old wretch minced his way up to her and kissed her hand—this reminded me for some reason of what the owner had said about his whipping her.
“It’s the inspector, my dear,” Moses rasped, wilting into the chair. “You remember the inspector?”
“Now how could I forget our dear Inspector Glebsky?” answered the beauty. “Sit down, Inspector, do us the pleasure. A beautiful night, don’t you think? So poetical!… The moon …”
I sat in the chair.
“The inspector has done us the honor,” Moses explained, “of making you and me suspects in the murder of that Olaf fellow. You remember Olaf? Well, someone killed him.”
“Yes, I heard about that already,” Mrs. Moses said. “Terrible. My dear Glebsky, how could you possibly suspect that we’d be involved in such a nightmarish crime?”
All of this was starting to get on my nerves. Enough, I thought. To hell with it.
“Madame,” I said dryly. “This investigation has established that yesterday, at approximately eight thirty in the evening you left the dining room. You can of course confirm this?”
The old man was about to burst out of his armchair, but Mrs. Moses was one step ahead of him.
“I can confirm it, of course,” she said. “What reason do I have to deny it? I needed to excuse myself, so I excused myself.”
“So far as I can understand it,” I continued. “You came here, to your room, and at around nine o’clock you again returned to the dining room. Is this right?”
“Yes, of course. To tell the truth, I can’t be certain of the exact time, I didn’t look at the clock … But most likely it was around then.”
“I would like to know if you remember, madame, whether you saw anyone on your trips to and from the dining room.”
“Yes, well, let’s see …” Mrs. Moses said. She furrowed her brow, and I tensed all over. “But of course!” she cried. “When I was on my way back, I saw a couple in the hallway …”
“Where?” I asked quickly.
“Well … just to the left of the landing. It was our poor Olaf and that amusing little creature … I don’t know whether to say a boy or a girl … Who is he, Moses?”
“One minute,” I said. “You are positive that they were standing to the left of the landing?”
“Absolutely positive. They were standing there, holding one another’s hands, and cooing quite tenderly. Naturally, I pretended that I hadn’t seen anything …”
So that’s why
Brun had hesitated: the kid remembered that someone had seen them outside of Olaf’s room, and had had no time to think of an excuse, and so had tried to lie in the hope that nothing would come of it.
“I am a woman, Inspector,” Mrs. Moses continued. “And I never interfere in other people’s affairs. Under other circumstances, you wouldn’t get a peep out of me, but now, it seems that I am obliged to be utterly frank … Isn’t that right, Moses?”
Moses in his chair muttered something unintelligible.
“Furthermore,” Mrs. Moses went on, “but I doubt this is of any special significance … On the way down the stairs, I met that unhappy little man …”
“Hinkus,” I hissed, and coughed. Something had stuck in my throat.
“Yes, Finkus … I think that’s his name … Did you know that he had tuberculosis, Inspector? But you’d never think it, would you?”
“I beg your pardon,” I said. “When you met him, was he going up the stairs from the lobby?”
“That should be clear even to a police officer,” Moses barked angrily. “My wife told you clearly that she met this Finkus on her way down the stairs. Which means that he must have met her going up …”
“Don’t be angry, Moses,” Mrs. Moses said gently. “The inspector just wants the details. No doubt it is important to him … Yes, Inspector, he was walking up the stairs, and, so far as I could tell, from the lobby. He wasn’t in a hurry and seemed to be deep in thought, for he didn’t pay me a bit of attention. We passed each other and went our separate ways.”
“How was he dressed?”
“Awfully! That nightmare of a coat … what is it called … sheepskin! It even smelled, if you’ll excuse me for saying so … of wet wool, dog … I don’t know about you, Inspector, but I think that if a man doesn’t have the funds to dress decently he should sit home and try to raise those funds, and not go places where he’s likely to run into decent society.”
“I would give that advice to many people here,” Moses grumbled over his mug. “Stay home and don’t visit places where you’re likely to find good society. Well, then, Inspector, are you finally finished?”
“No, not completely,” I said slowly. “I have one more question … After the ball was over and you went back to your room, I assume, madame, that you went to bed and slept soundly?”
“Slept soundly?… Well, how can I put it … I napped a little, I was feeling a little excited—no doubt I drank more than I should have …”
“But then something must have woken you up,” I said. “Because when I broke so awkwardly into your room later that night—I beg your sincere forgiveness—you were not asleep …”
“Oh, so that’s what you mean … Not asleep … No, I wasn’t asleep, but I can’t say, Inspector, that something woke me up. I simply felt that I wouldn’t be able to get any good sleep that night, and so decided to read a little. As you can see, I have been reading up to this time … Still, if you want to know whether or not I heard any suspicious noises over the course of the night, I can tell you with certainty that I did not.”
“No noise at all?” I said, surprised.
She looked at Moses with what seemed to me like confusion. I didn’t take my eyes off her.
“So far as I can remember, no,” she said, uncertainly. “What about you, Moses?”
“Absolutely not,” Moses said definitively. “If you don’t consider the blasted fuss raised by these gentlemen over that tramp …”
“And neither of you heard the sound of the avalanche? You didn’t feel the shock?”
“What avalanche?” a surprised Mrs. Moses said.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” Moses said. “It’s nothing to worry about. There was an avalanche in the mountains near here, I’ll tell you about it afterwards … Well, then, Inspector? Perhaps that’s enough?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s enough.” I stood up. “One more, the very last question.”
Mr. Moses’s growl made him sound just like a riled-up Lel. But Mrs. Moses nodded graciously.
“Go ahead, Inspector.”
“This afternoon, shortly before dinner, you, Mrs. Moses, went up on the roof …”
She interrupted me with a laugh.
“No, I did not go on the roof. I absentmindedly took the stairs up to the second floor from the lobby and then, without thinking about it, began climbing those awful stairs to the attic. When I suddenly saw the door in front of me, just a few boards really, I felt quite stupid … At first, I didn’t even realize where I was …”
I very much wanted to ask her what she had intended to do on the second floor. I was unable to think what business she might have had up there, though I could assume that it was the rendezvous with Simone which I had interrupted by chance. But at that moment I looked at the old man, and everything else flew out of my head. Because there in Moses’s lap lay a whip—a dark black horse-whip with a thick handle and numerous braided tails glistening with metal studs. I averted my eyes in shock.
“Thank you, madame,” I muttered. “You have been a great help to this investigation, madame.”
Feeling hopelessly tired, I made my way to the lobby and sat down next to the owner to rest. I shook my head, trying to drive out the awful sight of that horse-whip that was still hovering in front of my eyes. It was none of my business. It was a personal matter, of no concern to me … My eyes felt like they’d had sand thrown in them. No doubt I needed to get some sleep—even just a couple of hours. I still had to question the stranger, and the kid again, and then interrogate Kaisa, all of which would take strength, which meant that I had to go to sleep. But I had the feeling that I wouldn’t be able to sleep right now. Hinkus’s doubles were wandering the inn. Du Barnstoker’s kid was lying. Not to mention the fact that everything wasn’t exactly right with Mrs. Moses. Either she slept like the dead, in which case I didn’t understand why she’d lied and said that she barely slept, or she hadn’t been sleeping, in which case I didn’t understand why she hadn’t heard the avalanche, or the fracas in the neighboring room. And I absolutely didn’t understand what had happened to Simone … There were too many crazies wrapped up in this, I thought dully. Crazies, drunks and fools … But maybe I was going about things the wrong way? How would Zgut have proceeded in my place? He would have immediately picked out all those who had the strength to twist a two-meter-tall Viking’s neck and then set to work only on them. Meanwhile I was wasting my time on a feeble child, Hinkus the decrepit schizophrenic, Moses, that old alcoholic … No, that wasn’t the way to do it. Well, but I might find the killer. And then what? A typical case of a murder in a closed room. I would never be able to prove how the killer came in and how he went out … Too bad. Maybe I should get some coffee …
I looked at the owner. He was diligently pressing the adding machine’s keys and writing in his account books.
“Listen, Alek,” I said. “Is it possible that someone looking exactly like Hinkus could be hiding undetected in your inn?”
The owner raised his head and looked at me.
“Someone looking exactly like Hinkus?” he said in a businesslike manner. “Not someone else?”
“Yes. An exact double, Alek. Hinkus’s double is living in your inn. He is not paying his bill, Alek. Probably he’s been stealing food. Think of it, Alek!”
The owner thought of it.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t noticed anything like that. To tell you the truth the only thing I feel, Peter, is that you’re going about this all wrong. You’re following the most natural roads, and for that reason you’ve ended up in particularly unnatural places. You’re exploring alibis, gathering clues, looking for motives. But it seems to me that, in this particular case the usual terms of your art have lost their meaning, the same way that the concept of time changes meaning at speeds faster than light …”
“That’s your feeling?” I asked bitterly.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, all this speculating about alibis at faster than lig
ht speeds. My head starts to feel like a balloon, and god only knows what you’re talking about. Better bring me some coffee.”
The owner stood up.
“Your understanding of this is still in its infancy, Peter,” he said. “I’m waiting for you to finally ripen.”
“Why wait for that? I’m ripe enough as it is—I’m practically falling off the branch.”
“You aren’t going to fall off anything,” the owner said soothingly. “Anyway, you’ve still got some ripening to go. But when you are ripe—when I see that you’re ready, then I’ll tell you something.”
“Tell me now,” I said feebly.
“There’s no point telling you now. You’d only shake it off and forget it. I want to wait until the moment when it’ll be clear that my words are the only thing capable of unlocking this mystery for you.”
“Good lord,” I muttered. “One can only imagine the truths you’ve got in store!”
The manager smiled condescendingly and got up to go to the kitchen. On his way out the door he stopped and said:
“If you want, I’ll tell you why our great physicist was so surprised?”
“All right, try me,” I said.
“When he got in bed with Mrs. Moses, our great physicist found, not a living, breathing, woman, but an unliving, unbreathing mannequin … A doll, Peter. Cold as stone.”
11.
He stood there, grinning at me from the doorway.
“All right, then, come here,” I said. “Tell me.”
“What about the coffee?”
“To hell with the coffee! I can see you know something. Don’t play games with me, spit it out.”
He came back to the table, but didn’t sit down.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “All I can do is draw certain conclusions.”
“How did you know what Simone found?”
“Ah! My guess was correct, then …” He sat down and made himself comfortable. “Though, to be fair, I could see I’d guessed right by how blown away you looked, Peter. You must agree, that was a pretty effective delivery …”