ventricle, and the outline is a regular oval, with smooth edges. I’ve never seen a wound like it, not even in a textbook.”
“Yes, it’s certainly unusual,” Dolinin agreed, bending down. “A hammer, perhaps? Only the force is immense, almost satanic. To make the eyeballs jump out of their sockets—I tell you, that takes …”
The cabin was filled with the dank smell of drying blood. Pelagia felt slightly sick. The worst thing of all was the way the disgusting smell mingled with the aroma of the eau de cologne that the Sturgeons captain was wearing. He was obliged to be present at the inspection of the scene by virtue of his position, but he stood modestly at one side and didn’t get under the specialists’ feet.
The sister closed her eyes, struggling with her nausea. Nothing in the world is more terrible or more oppressive than the mystery of death stripped of its dignity and rendered shameful. And there was that well-thumbed banknote, too.
“The male organ bears signs of circumcision, relatively recent,” the doctor announced as he continued his examination. “The scar is still crimson. Perhaps seven or eight months, unlikely to be more.”
Pelagia waited for the doctor and the photographer to finish their work and move away from the body, then asked the investigator’s permission to say a prayer. She went down on her knees and first of all covered the dead man’s nakedness. Then she pulled the vain, worldly scrap of paper out of the lifeless hand. She had expected the rigid fingers would be reluctant to part with their property, but the scrap came out remarkably easily.
As she handed the clue to the investigator, Pelagia said: “Strange. Did he sleep like that, clutching money in his hands? Or after his head was already broken in, did he try to tear it out of the villain’s hands?”
Dolinin said nothing for a moment, gazing with interest at the bespectacled holy sister. Then he sniffed and scratched the bridge of his nose above the arch of his pince-nez. “Indeed. My thanks for being so observant. According to the testimony of Manuila’s traveling companions, the money—or, as they put it, the ‘treasury’—was in a casket under the pillow. The casket, naturally enough, is missing. Hmm. Grab hold of your killer’s hands, with your head smashed in right through ‘to the third ventricle.’ Miraculous. Let’s enter that in the ‘puzzles’ section.”
And he made an entry in a little leather-bound book. Pelagia liked that: the man was not being hasty with his conclusions.
She liked Dolinin in general, because he worked sensibly, thoroughly—you could see straightaway that the man knew his job as a detective and loved it.
You might even say that Manuila had been lucky with his investigator.
A master at work
EVERYTHING HAD GONE quite differently at first.
At the sound of the nun’s screams, people had come running up and started gasping in horror. The Foundlings made even more noise. When they learned that their leader had been killed, they started howling and wailing: “Oh Lord! Disaster! Az och’n veil Help! Eloim!” But the words repeated most often of all were “The treasury! The treasury!”
The captain appeared, and instead of restoring order, he turned the proceedings into total chaos—perhaps because he was frightened, or perhaps owing to a certain degree of insobriety.
The commander of the steamer was transformed into a Zeus, scattering lightning bolts around him. In front of the ill-fated cabin and beneath its window, he installed watches of sailors armed with items of firefighting equipment. He ordered first-class and second-class passengers to stay in their cabins and not stick their noses out; he herded all the deck passengers onto the poop deck and put them under the guard of two swarthy stokers with shovels in their hands. He himself donned his white dress uniform tunic, hung a huge revolver at his side, and poured a whole bottle of eau de cologne over himself to
“Yes, it’s certainly unusual,” Dolinin agreed, bending down. “A hammer, perhaps? Only the force is immense, almost satanic. To make the eyeballs jump out of their sockets—I tell you, that takes …”
The cabin was filled with the dank smell of drying blood. Pelagia felt slightly sick. The worst thing of all was the way the disgusting smell mingled with the aroma of the eau de cologne that the Sturgeons captain was wearing. He was obliged to be present at the inspection of the scene by virtue of his position, but he stood modestly at one side and didn’t get under the specialists’ feet.
The sister closed her eyes, struggling with her nausea. Nothing in the world is more terrible or more oppressive than the mystery of death stripped of its dignity and rendered shameful. And there was that well-thumbed banknote, too.
“The male organ bears signs of circumcision, relatively recent,” the doctor announced as he continued his examination. “The scar is still crimson. Perhaps seven or eight months, unlikely to be more.”
Pelagia waited for the doctor and the photographer to finish their work and move away from the body, then asked the investigator’s permission to say a prayer. She went down on her knees and first of all covered the dead man’s nakedness. Then she pulled the vain, worldly scrap of paper out of the lifeless hand. She had expected the rigid fingers would be reluctant to part with their property, but the scrap came out remarkably easily.
As she handed the clue to the investigator, Pelagia said: “Strange. Did he sleep like that, clutching money in his hands? Or after his head was already broken in, did he try to tear it out of the villain’s hands?”
Dolinin said nothing for a moment, gazing with interest at the bespectacled holy sister. Then he sniffed and scratched the bridge of his nose above the arch of his pince-nez. “Indeed. My thanks for being so observant. According to the testimony of Manuila’s traveling companions, the money—or, as they put it, the ‘treasury’—was in a casket under the pillow. The casket, naturally enough, is missing. Hmm. Grab hold of your killer’s hands, with your head smashed in right through ‘to the third ventricle.’ Miraculous. Let’s enter that in the ‘puzzles’ section.”
And he made an entry in a little leather-bound book. Pelagia liked that: the man was not being hasty with his conclusions.
She liked Dolinin in general, because he worked sensibly, thoroughly—you could see straightaway that the man knew his job as a detective and loved it.
You might even say that Manuila had been lucky with his investigator.
A master at work
EVERYTHING HAD GONE quite differently at first.
At the sound of the nun’s screams, people had come running up and started gasping in horror. The Foundlings made even more noise. When they learned that their leader had been killed, they started howling and wailing: “Oh Lord! Disaster! Az och’n veil Help! Eloim!” But the words repeated most often of all were “The treasury! The treasury!”
The captain appeared, and instead of restoring order, he turned the proceedings into total chaos—perhaps because he was frightened, or perhaps owing to a certain degree of insobriety.
The commander of the steamer was transformed into a Zeus, scattering lightning bolts around him. In front of the ill-fated cabin and beneath its window, he installed watches of sailors armed with items of firefighting equipment. He ordered first-class and second-class passengers to stay in their cabins and not stick their noses out; he herded all the deck passengers onto the poop deck and put them under the guard of two swarthy stokers with shovels in their hands. He himself donned his white dress uniform tunic, hung a huge revolver at his side, and poured a whole bottle of eau de cologne over himself to
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