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cheer that Porfiry’s opponent was forced to bow his agreement.
    “Very well. We will play. Pick any card you like from your pack, and place it facedown on the table without letting me see it. Very good. Now then, this is my pack. Here, I want you to cut my pack for me. You know what it means to cut the cards, I take it?”
    Porfiry nodded and obeyed.
    “Thank you.” The other man put the two halves of the pack together. “In this game, the game of Schtoss, I turn over the first two cards from my pack. The first card goes on the right, the second on the left. Like so.” He dealt up the nine of hearts followed by the three of spades. “If the number of your card matches the first of my cards—that is to say, if it is a nine of any suit—then you lose. If it matches the second—the card on the left—then you win. If neither matches, we deal again, a third and fourth card, and so on until we encounter a match. Are you willing to play?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then, please, be so good as to turn over your card.”
    Porfiry turned over the queen of spades.
    “No match,” said his opponent. “No matter. We keep going.”
    He dealt two more cards, the six of diamonds followed by the ten of diamonds. Again Porfiry’s card, the jack of clubs, failed to produce a match.
    The man in the frock coat nodded grimly and dealt two more cards, neither of which was matched by Porfiry’s.
    The two players stared unflinchingly into each other’s eyes, as if this would have a bearing on the cards they dealt. Porfiry’s hands shook. His palms began to sweat. And yet he did not want the game to end. In each turning of a card, he felt the heavy hammering of his heart, reminding him with renewed insistence that he was alive. Whatever the outcome of the game, he knew he would miss this feeling.
    It was about ten deals later when Porfiry turned over a seven of clubs, matching the seven of hearts on top of the left-hand pile of cards.
    “I win, I believe,” said Porfiry. It was as he had expected. His delight at winning was tempered by regret that the game was over. He wanted to play again.
    The other man nodded, admitting defeat. “To the left, over there, past that woman with the cough. There is a door. It leads to the annex. Virginsky lodges in there, on the ground floor, with the cabinetmaker Kezel.”
    After the tension of the confrontation, the mood returned to the earlier one of brash amusement. The laughter now, however, was at the expense of the man in the frock coat, who took in good humor their jibes at his failure to secure them a fresh bottle of vodka.
    Porfiry left the table reluctantly, almost disappointed; depressed, despite his success. He had the sense that they had finished with him. And all that he had to turn to was his duty.
     
    T HE NAME KEZEL was chalked on the door.
    Kezel himself was not in, but his wife—a silent, cowed woman whose face bore the marks of her last beating—showed Porfiry to the door of the tiny cell occupied by the student Virginsky. He was as the pawnbroker had described him, pale and shabbily dressed. He was also, Porfiry noted, underfed to the point of stupor. His glazed eyes were sunk in dark circles of exhaustion. He was shivering. It struck Porfiry that Virginsky showed no sign of surprise at his arrival. It was almost as if he had been expecting him. But perhaps he was simply incapable of registering any emotion. As soon as Virginsky admitted Porfiry to his room, he fell back on the bed. As there was nowhere for Porfiry to sit other than on the bed, he remained standing. He sniffed the air, which was—unexpectedly—scented.
    Porfiry looked down at the pitiful figure of the young man and felt the stirrings of a deep anxiety. He couldn’t help being reminded of the student double-murderer whose case had so engaged him the year before.
    “You are Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky?” His voice sounded harsher than he had meant it to.
    “Yes.”
    “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Porfiry