matter. You were the prime suspect from the very b-beginning, in spite of all your c-caution. Let me explain why. The vicious m-murders in Khitrovka started about two months ago. A d-drunken reveller was killed and robbed, and then a reporter intending to write an article about the s-slums. Nothing unusual for Khitrovka, if n-not for one certain detail: their eyes were g-gouged out. Then the m-murderer gouged out the eyes of everyone in the Siniukhin family, in exactly the s-same way. There are two circumstances of n-note here. Firstly, it is impossible to imagine any of these exceptional c-crimes occurring on your beat without you f-finding out who committed them. You are the true master of Khitrovka! Superintendents come and g-go, the top dogs in the criminal underworld change, b-but Boxman is eternal. He has eyes and ears everywhere, every d-door is open to him, he knows the s-secrets of the police and the Council. More murders took p-place and the entire city started t-talking about them, but the ubiquitous Boxman d-didn’t know a thing. From this I concluded that you were c-connected with the mysterious Treasure Hunter, and m-must be his accomplice. My suspicions were corroborated by the fact that in s-subsequent murders the victims’ eyes were not put out. I recalled t-telling you that the theory of images being retained on the retina after death had been d-disproved by science . . . But I was still n-not certain that you were the killer and not s-simply an accomplice. Until yesterday n-night, that is, when you killed a young m-man, one of your informers. That was when I finally excluded all the other spiders f-from my list of suspects and focused on you . . .’
‘And how exactly, if I might enquire, did I give myself away?’ Boxman asked, looking at the engineer curiously. Senka couldn’t see a trace of fear or even alarm in the constable’s face.
But then he had to turn his head to look at the superintendent: Are you admitting it, Boxman?’ Solntsev exclaimed in fright, recoiling from his subordinate. ‘But he hasn’t proved anything yet!’
‘He will,’ Boxman said with a good-natured wave, still looking at Mr Nameless. ‘There’s no wriggling out of it with him. And you keep your mouth shut, Your Honour. This has nothing to do with you.’
Solntsev opened his mouth, but he didn’t make a peep. That was what the books called ‘to be struck dumb’.
‘You want t-to know how you gave yourself away?’ Erast Petrovich asked with a smirk. ‘Why, it’s very s-simple. There is only one way to twist someone’s n-neck through a hundred and eighty degrees in a s-single moment, so fast that he doesn’t even have time to m-make a sound: take a firm grasp of the c-crown of the head and turn it sharply, b-breaking the vertebrae and tearing the m-muscles. This requires truly phenomenal physical strength – a strength th-that you alone, of all the suspects, possess. Neither the Prince, nor Deadeye, n-nor the superintendent could have done that. There are not many people in the world c-capable of such a feat. And that’s all there is t-to it. The Khitrovka m-murders are not a very complex case. If I had not been involved in another investigation at the s-same time, I would have got to you m-much sooner . . .’
‘Well, no one’s perfect,’ Boxman said with a shrug. ‘I thought I was being so careful, but I slipped up there. I should have smashed Prokha’s head in.’
‘Indeed,’ Mr Nameless agreed. ‘But that would n-not have saved you from participating in Operation Spiders in a J-Jar. The outcome would still have b-been the same in any case.’
As he peeped over Death’s shoulder, Senka tried to figure out what that outcome was. What was going to happen when the talking stopped? The bandits had already lowered their hands on the sly, and the superintendent’s lips were trembling. If he started blasting away with those revolvers, that would be a fine outcome for everyone.
But the engineer carried on talking to the constable as if he was sitting by the samovar in a tea-house. ‘I c-can understand everything,’ said Erast Petrovich. ‘You didn’t want to l-leave any witnesses, you didn’t even take p-pity on a three-year-old child. But why kill the d-dog and the parrot? That is more than mere c-caution, it is insanity.’
‘Oh no, Your Honour,’ said Boxman, stroking his drooping moustache. ‘That bird could talk. When I went in, the Armenian woman said to