‘Thank you. No, professor,’ replied his visitor, putting down his cap on the edge of the desk. ‘I’m very grateful to you… No… I’ve come, h’m, on another matter, Philip Philipovich… in view of the great respect I feel… I’ve come to… er, warn you. It’s obviously nonsense, of course. He’s simply a scoundrel.’ The patient searched in his briefcase and took out a piece of paper. ‘It’s a good thing I was told about this right away…’
Philip Philipovich slipped a pince-nez over his spectacles and began to read. For a long time he mumbled half-aloud, his expression changing every moment. ‘…also threatening to murder the chairman of the house committee, comrade Shvonder, which shows that he must be keeping a firearm. And he makes counter- revolutionary speeches, and even ordered his domestic worker, Zinaida Prokofievna Bunina, to burn Engels in the stove. He is an obvious Menshevik and so is his assistant Ivan Arnoldovich Bormenthal who is living secretly in his flat without being registered. Signed: P. P. Sharikov
Sub-Dept. Controller City Cleansing Dept. Countersigned: Shvonder
Chairman, House Committee. Pestrukhin Secretary, House Committee.
‘May I keep this?’ asked Philip Philipovich, his face blotchy. ‘Or perhaps you need it so that legal proceedings can be made?’
‘Really, professor.’ The patient was most offended and blew out his nostrils. ‘You seem to regard us with contempt. I…’ And he began to puff himself up like a turkeycock.
‘Please forgive me, my dear fellow!’ mumbled Philip Philipovich. ‘I really didn’t mean to offend you. Please don’t be angry. You can’t believe what this creature has done to my nerves…’
‘So I can imagine,’ said the patient, quite mollified. ‘But what a swine! I’d be curious to have a look at him. Moscow is full of stories about you…’
Philip Philipovich could only gesture in despair. It was then that the patient noticed how hunched the professor was looking and that he seemed to have recently grown much greyer.
Nine
The crime ripened, then fell like a stone, as usually happens. With an uncomfortable feeling round his heart Poligraph Poligraphovich returned that evening by lorry. Philip Philipovich’s voice invited him into the consulting- room. Surprised, Sharikov entered and looked first, vaguely frightened, at Bormenthal’s steely face, then at Philip Philipovich. A cloud of smoke surrounded the doctor’s head and his left hand, trembling very slightly, held a cigarette and rested on the shiny handle of the obstetrical chair.
With ominous calm Philip Philipovich said:
‘Go and collect your things at once — trousers, coat, everything you need — then get out of this flat!’
‘What is all this?’ Sharikov was genuinely astonished. ‘Get out of this flat — and today,’ repeated Philip Philipovich, frowning down at his fingernails.
An evil spirit was at work inside Poligraph Poligraphovich. It was obvious that his end was in sight and his time nearly up, but he hurled himself towards the inevitable and barked in an angry staccato:
‘Like hell I will! You got to give me my rights. I’ve a right to thirty-seven square feet and I’m staying right here.’
‘Get out of this flat,’ whispered Philip Philipovich in a strangled voice.
It was Sharikov himself who invited his own death. He raised his left hand, which stank most horribly of cats, and cocked a snook at Philip Philipovich. Then with his right hand he drew a revolver on Bormenthal. Bormenthal’s cigarette fell like a shooting star. A few seconds later Philip Philipovich was hopping about on broken glass and running from the cabinet to the couch. On it, spreadeagled and croaking, lay a sub-department controller of the City Cleansing Department; Bormenthal the surgeon was sitting astride his chest and suffocating him with a small white pad.
After some minutes Bormenthal, with a most unfamiliar look, walked out on to the landing and stuck a notice beside the doorbell:
The Professor regrets that owing to indisposition he will be unable to hold consulting hours today. Please do not disturb the Professor by ringing the bell.
With a gleaming penknife he then cut the bell-cable, inspected his scratched and bleeding face in the mirror and his lacerated, slightly trembling hands. Then he went into the kitchen and said to the anxious Zina and Darya Petrovna:
‘The professor says you mustn’t leave the fiat on any account.’
‘No, we won’t,’ they replied timidly.
‘Now I must lock the back door and keep the key,’ said Bormenthal, sidling round the room and covering his face with his hand. ‘It’s only temporary, not because we don’t trust you. But if anybody came you might not be able to keep them out and we mustn’t be disturbed. We’re busy.’
‘All right,’ replied the two women, turning pale. Bormenthal locked the back door, locked the front door, locked the door from the corridor into the hall and his footsteps faded away into the consulting-room.
Silence filled the flat, flooding into every comer. Twilight crept in, dank and sinister and gloomy. Afterwards the neighbours across the courtyard said that every light burned that evening in the windows of Preobrazhensky’s consulting-room and that they even saw the professor’s white skullcap… It is hard to be sure. When it was all over Zina did say, though, that when Bormenthal and the professor emerged from the consulting-room, there, by the study fireplace, Ivan Amoldovich had frightened her to death. It seems he was squatting down in front of the fire and burning one of the blue-bound notebooks which contained the medical notes on the professor’s patients. The doctor’s face, apparently, was quite green and completely — yes, completely — scratched to pieces. And that evening Philip Philipovich had been most peculiar. And then there was another thing — but maybe that innocent girl from the flat in Prechistenka Street was talking rubbish…
One thing, though, was certain: there was silence in the flat that evening — total, frightening silence.
Epilogue
One night, exactly ten days to the day after the struggle in Professor Preobrazhensky’s consulting-room in his flat on Obukhov Street, there was a sharp ring of the doorbell.
‘Criminal police. Open up, please.’
Footsteps approached, people knocked and entered until a considerable crowd filled the brightly-lit waiting- room with its newly-glazed cabinet. There were two in police uniform, one in a black overcoat and carrying a brief- case; there was chairman Shvonder, pale and gloating, and the youth who had turned out to be a woman; there was Fyodor the porter, Zina, Darya Petrovna and Bormenthal, half dressed and embarrassed as he tried to cover up his tieless neck.
The door from the study opened to admit Philip Philipovich. He appeared in his familiar blue dressing gown and everybody could tell at once that over the past week Philip Philipovich had begun to look very much better. The old Philip Philipovich, masterful, energetic and dignified, now faced his nocturnal visitors and apologised for appearing in his dressing gown.
‘It doesn’t matter, professor,’ said the man in civilian clothes, in great embarrassment. He faltered and then said:
‘I’m sorry to say we have a warrant to search your flat and’ -the men stared uneasily at Philip Philipovich’s moustaches and ended: ‘to arrest you, depending on the results of our search.’
Philip Philipovich frowned and asked:
‘What, may I ask, is the charge, and who is being charged?’
The man scratched his cheek and began reading from a piece of paper from his briefcase.
‘Preobrazhensky, Bormenthal, Zinaida Bunina and Darya Ivanova are charged with the murder of Poligraph Poligraph-ovich Sharikov, sub-department controller. City of Moscow Cleansing Department.’
The end of his speech was drowned by Zina’s sobs. There was general movement.
‘I don’t understand,’ replied Philip Philipovich with a regal shrug. ‘Who is this Sharikov? Oh, of course, you
