The chronicles of Michael Danevitch of the Russian Secret Service

by Dick Donovan

Pursuing his inquiries, Danevitch found that this soldier brother had left St. Petersburg on the night of the murder for his home. Danevitch followed him there, but found on his arrival that, his furlough being up, he had returned to Cronstadt. The parents were peasants, and, like most Russian peasants, living a miserable sort of life; but Danevitch learnt this fact, that quite recently they had been to a neighbouring market-town and purchased a horse and two cows, which made the neighbours quite envious; and, of course, such an event in so small a village was a nine days’ wonder, and was much commented upon. The soldier son, who was so good to his parents, had no doubt provided them with the money. Danevitch, however, was well aware that, however dutiful and affectionate the son was, he could not save from his miserable pay a sum sufficiently large for the purchase of two cows and a horse. The pay of the Russian private is about one halfpenny a day. It is therefore impossible for him to save money. Having regard to these facts, the detective deemed some explanation imperatively necessary. But before he took his departure from the little village, it came to his knowledge that Andreyvitch, the father of Andrey, the soldier, was carrying on negotiations with a Jew—Weissmann by name—a nationalized German, for the purchase of a little plot of land in the village. Weissmann had had a mortgage on the land, had foreclosed, and was anxious to sell. At last a bargain was struck, and Andreyvitch paid one hundred roubles as earnest money. The hundred roubles was paid in notes. They formed part of the amount Riskoff had drawn from the bank. Thereupon Danevitch confronted old Andreyvitch with two armed officers of the law, and demanded to know where he got those notes from. The simple and ignorant old peasant at once answered that he had received them from his son.

‘Where did the son get them from?’

The father understood that his son had found a roll of notes, and though he ought to have delivered them at the bureau of police, his strong affection for his poor old parents prompted him to commit a breach of the law by retaining the money and giving it to his father.

‘Had the father any more notes?’

Yes, he had a roll of them. He produced them from a hole in the thatch of his house. They were carefully wrapped up in a piece of sheepskin to keep them from the damp. There were notes to the value of one thousand five hundred roubles. The old people had already spent about five hundred roubles in the purchase of the cows and the horse, and in clearing off certain debts. To the astonishment and terror of the old people, the notes were retained, and steps were taken to recover those that had already been paid away.

With the money in his possession, Danevitch returned to St. Petersburg, and handed it over to the defending counsel in time for him to make that dramatic coup in court. The next step was the arrest of Olga and Andrey. They were arrested simultaneously, though one was in St. Petersburg, the other in Cronstadt. The woman was terrified at first, but when she was confronted with the Judge of Instruction, she became sullen, and refused to answer any questions. Not so Andrey; he at once confessed that he had stolen the money, but vowed that he did not commit the murder.

‘Who did commit the murder, then?’

He believed that Ivanoff did. All that he knew about it was what his sweetheart had told him; she said she had found her master shot. He was lying on the floor with a bullet-wound in the head, and on the table was a pile of bank-notes. She asked him to go to the room and take the notes, which he did.

Danevitch saw at once the discrepancies in this story. It was not at all likely that Ivanoff would have gone off leaving a large number of bank-notes on the table. So Olga and Andrey were each consigned to a secret dungeon. In the course of a week the discipline of the dungeon life had worked its effects on Olga, and with blanched lips she related the following story to the Judge of Instruction.

Her soldier lover had come to see her two days before the crime, and, unknown to her master, she had kept him in the house during those two days. On the morning of the crime, when her master and Ivanoff returned from the bank, she had to go into the room to take in some refreshments. She saw a great heap of notes on the table; she heard the conversation about the revolver, and saw Ivanoff hand his to her master. When the visitor had departed and she had closed the door upon him, she thought how easy it would be to murder the master, take his money, and let it seem as if Ivanoff had done it. Her fellow-servant was ill in bed; the man-servant was out. Her lover was at hand, and nobody knew that he was there. She hurried to him. She told him all. He was entirely under her influence. She went to her master’s room again. The notes were still on the table, so was the revolver. He was busy making up his books, and did not seem to notice her. As she removed a tray containing glasses and biscuits, she secretly took away the revolver also. Then she flew to Andrey, gave him the weapon, and they returned to the room. She opened the door gently; Riskoff was sitting at the table, still writing. Andrey crept in on his hands and knees and shot him. He took the notes and the receipt given by Ivanoff to his friend for the thousand roubles, and immediately left the house. In six months’ time he would be drafted into the reserve; then he and Olga would be married, and go to live with his people. Nobody would suspect them of the crime. The case was clear against Ivanoff; he would probably die, and there would be an end of it, for dead men tell no tales.