He has several shady transactions on his conscience. The whole town knows that two years back he married a rich old woman of seventy, and that last year he strangled her; however, he was somehow successful in hushing up this affair. But for that matter, the remaining four have also seen a thing or two in their chequered life. But, just as the bretteurs of old felt no twinges of conscience at the recollection of their victims, even so do these people regard the dark and bloody things in their past as the unavoidable little unpleasantness of their professions.
They are drinking coffee with rich, boiled cream—the inspector with Benedictine. But he, strictly speaking, is not drinking, but merely conveying the impression that he is doing it to oblige.
“Well, what is it to be, Phoma Phomich?” asks the proprietress searchingly. “This business isn’t worth an empty eggshell, now … Why, you have only to say a word …”
Berkesh slowly draws in half a wineglass of liqueur, works the oily, strong, pungent liquid slightly with his tongue over the roof of his mouth, swallows it, chases it down, without hurrying, with coffee, and then passes the ring finger of his left hand over his moustaches, to the right and left.
“Think it over for yourself, Madame Shoibes,” he says, looking down at the table, spreading out his hands and screwing up his eyes. “Think of the risk to which I’m exposed! The girl through means of deception was enticed into this … what-you-may-call-it … well, in a word, into a house of ill-fame, to express it in lofty style. Now the parents are searching for her through the police. Ve-ery well. She gets into one place after another, from the fifth into the tenth … Finally the trail is picked up with you, and most important of all—think of it!—in my district! What can I do?”
“Mr. Berkesh, but she is of age,” says the proprietress.
“They are of age,” confirms Isaiah Savvich. “They gave an acknowledgment, that it was of their own will …”
Emma Edwardovna pronounces in a bass, with cool assurance:
“Honest to God, she’s the same here as an own daughter.”
“But that’s not what I am talking about,” the inspector frowns in vexation. “Just consider my position … Why, this is duty. Lord, there’s no end of unpleasantnesses without that!”
The proprietress suddenly arises, shuffles in her slippers to the door, and says, winking to the inspector with a sleepy, expressionless eye of faded blue:
“Mr. Berkesh, I would ask you to have a look at our alterations. We want to enlarge the place a bit.”
“A-ah! With pleasure …”
After ten minutes both return, without looking at each other. Berkesh’s hand is crunching a brand-new hundred rouble note in his pocket. The conversation about the seduced girl is not renewed. The inspector, hastily finishing his Benedictine, complains of the present decline in manners.
“I have a son, now, a schoolboy—Paul. He comes to me, the scoundrel, and declares: ‘Papa, the pupils swear at me, because you are a policeman, and because you serve on Yamskaya, and because you take bribes from brothels.’ Well, tell me, for God’s sake, Madame Shoibes, if that isn’t effrontery?”
“Ai, ai, ai! … And what bribes can there be? Now with me …”
“I say to him: ‘Go, you good-for-nothing, and let the principal know, that there should be no more of this, otherwise papa will inform on all of you to the governor.’ And what do you think? He comes to me and says: ‘I am no longer a son to you—seek another son for yourself.’ What an argument! Well, I gave him enough to last till the first of the month! Oho-ho! Now he doesn’t want to speak with me. Well, I’ll show him yet!”
“Ah, you don’t have to tell us,” sighs Anna Markovna, letting her lower, raspberry-coloured lip hang down and with a mist coming over her faded eyes. “We keep our Birdie—she is in Fleisher’s high school—we purposely keep her in town, in a respectable family. You understand, it is awkward, after all. And all of a sudden she brings such words and expressions from the high school that I just simply turned all red.”
“Honest to God, Annochka turned all red,” confirms Isaiah Savvich.
“You’ll turn red, all right!” warmly agrees the inspector. “Yes, yes, yes, I understand you fully. But, my God, where are we going! Where are we only going? I ask you, what are these revolutionaries and all these various students, or … what-you-may-call-’ems? … trying to attain? And let them put the blame on none but themselves. Corruption is everywhere, morality is falling, there is no respect for parents. They ought to be shot.”
“Well, now, the day before yesterday we had a case,” Zociya mixes in bustlingly. “A certain guest came, a stout man …”
“Can it! Lay off!” Emma Edwardovna, who was listening to the inspector, piously nodding with her head bowed to one side, cuts her short in the jargon of the brothels. “You’d better go and see about breakfast for the young ladies.”
“And not a single person can be relied upon,” continues the proprietress grumblingly. “Not a servant but what she’s a stiff, a faker. And all the girls ever think about is their sweethearts. Just so’s they may have their own pleasure. But about their duties they don’t even think.”
There is an awkward silence. Someone knocks on the door. A thin, feminine voice speaks on the other side of the door:
“Housekeeper, dear, take the money and be kind enough to give me the stamps. Pete’s gone.”
The inspector gets up and adjusts his sabre.
“Well, it’s time I was going to work. Best regards, Anna Markovna. Best wishes, Isaiah Savvich.”
“Perhaps you’ll have one more little glass for a stirrup cup?” the nearly blind Isaiah Savvich thrusts himself over the table.
“Tha-ank you. I can’t. Full to the gills. Honoured, I’m sure! …”
“Thanks for your company. Drop in some time.”
“Always glad to be your guest, sir. Au
