REFERENCES "Look for the Woman", dir. Alla Surikova, 1982 "Knives Out", dir. Rian Johnson, 2019 "The Canterville Ghost", Valentina Broomberg, 1970
CHARACTERS BIBLE Georgy Borisovich Yachmenev is a worthy colleague of such detectives as Sherlock Holmes, Maigret and Poirot. He gives the impression of being slow and even lazy. He has the enormous hands of a worker, the graying and thinning hair of a scientist, and the trusting eyes of a collective farmer. For nineteen years, Georgy Borisovich has been successfully purging the ranks of society of undesirable elements. His only weakness is a fear of the dark, blood, and the dead. Yachmenev's assistants: Ivan Shalyto - short and plump, Zinovy Fomin - tall and skinny. They could not boast of depth of mind or keen intelligence, but they more than made up for these shortcomings with their zeal for service. Anton Varlamov - a junior research fellow, a young man with the appearance of a movie hero from a trendy intellectual film. Ugly but charming, big-lipped but thin-legged, stooped but athletic, positive but negative. He has a small, intelligent face like a thoroughbred monkey. Nadezhda Dmitrievna – the commandant, a sinister old woman with a noble past, strong build, with a jutting chin that spoke of a decisive character. Yachmenev especially disliked the old woman's mustache. Rostovsky Kirill Petrovich – the chief custodian of the library, a tall, gray-haired man dressed in an impeccable dark suit, a white shirt, and a bow tie. The elegance of his clothes contrasts with his unshaven face. Maria Nikitichna Zubareva – the widow of the murdered man, a faded woman with meek brown eyes, dressed entirely in foreign clothes. Alla Georgievna – a teacher of Russian language and literature, Anton Varlamov's passion, a beauty.
SYNOPSIS At midnight, the telephone rang in the room of investigator Georgy Borisovich Yachmenev. An unfamiliar voice announced that the famous academician Sergei Ivanovich Zubarev, who had recently written a monograph on Ivan the Terrible, had just been murdered in the library. When the sleepy investigator asked who committed the murder and for what reason, a stunning answer followed: firstly, Zubarev was killed for his lack of principles, and secondly, he was killed by a ghost!
The puzzled investigator assumes that he is being played, but at 4 a.m. his subordinate confirms the news, and Yachmenev begins the investigation.
He has his own special method: paradoxically, Yachmenev did not look for the guilty. He always tried to ensure the innocence of those suspected of a crime. When he found all the innocent, the guilty revealed themselves. He has two assistants: Zinovy Fomin and Ivan Shalyto, who are not known for their depth of mind and intelligence, but more than make up for these shortcomings with their zeal for work. Unlike Yachmenev, Fomin suspected everyone. In the absence of other, smarter personnel, Yachmenev did his best to cultivate Ivan and Zinovy as worthy replacements.
It all started like in a respectable crime novel. He went to the kitchen and made coffee. Coffee is the national drink of investigators, it gives them energy and sets the mood for a detective story. Then Yachmenev went out into the dark street, where, of course, it was pouring rain, it was pitch black.
He arrives at the crime scene in the library, where the expert, the photographer and the doctor are already there. The assistant reports that the criminals left a lot of traces: gold-framed glasses; a lady's cameo brooch; A man's handkerchief stained with women's lipstick; a ticket for today's express train Moscow-Kuibyshev, carriage number six, seat thirteen, the bottom; and a string bag with groceries. It contains a bottle of kefir and three hundred and ninety grams of sausage. And another mysterious detail - a manuscript, torn to shreds!
The expert determined that Zubarev was killed by a blow to the head with a blunt instrument. No fingerprints were found on the telephone receiver. There was no robbery, the motive for the murder is unclear. Yachmenev orders his assistant to restore the manuscript.
He begins the investigation with a conversation with the rather ironic commandant Maria Dmitrievna, who found the body. The old mansion that housed the library once belonged to her father. Yachmenev, just in case, asked the old lady if ghosts had ever lived here. Having received a sarcastic negative answer, he goes to the scene of the murder.
It would be hard to find a more ideal place to commit a crime. Table lamps created a semi-darkness conducive to murder. From the labyrinth formed by the bookshelves, a predator could sneak up on its intended victim. A thick, soft carpet muffled the sound of a falling body.
The library walls were decorated with antique engravings of St. Petersburg, a portrait of Catherine the Great by an unknown 18th-century artist, a watercolor by Kuzmin from the illustrations to "Eugene Onegin," and a copy of Repin's painting "Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan."
Yachmenev begins to get acquainted with the employees who were in the library on the night of the murder, trying to determine who owned the items found there. The first to enter was Anton Varlamov, a junior research fellow. Yachmenev glanced lazily at Anton, and a realization struck him: the handkerchief with lipstick stains belonged to Anton. He and Zubarev had a nasty relationship, holding opposing views on science. Anton accused Zubarev of being unscrupulous. Furthermore, they both liked the same woman—the beautiful Alla Grigoryevna, a literature teacher writing a dissertation, and Sergei Ivanovich was her supervisor. But Yachmenev's intuition told him Anton wasn't the killer.
The investigator's conversation with Anton was overheard by his assistant, Fomin, who was sitting in one of the bookcases during the conversation and couldn't leave because someone had locked him in. Since the room was empty, the situation was puzzling.
Next was the widow, Maria Nikitichna Zubareva. She was the owner of the next piece of evidence—a foreign-made string bag containing kefir and sausage, which the hungry investigator coveted while destroying the evidence. Maria Nikitichna, jealous of her husband, suspected he was not alone in the library, so she came for him and found him murdered.
Released from the closet, locked in by an unknown person, Fomin retreats to the restroom. When the door closes behind him, a vase falls from the closet, literally millimeters from Yachmenev's head. It is unclear who threw it. Another mystery alarms the detectives; they examine every corner, suspecting a secret passage, but there is none.
In the restroom, Fomin finds his next suspect: Kirill Petrovich Rostovsky, the library's chief curator. It suddenly turns out that it was he who wrote Zubarev's scientific papers, and Zubarev, as an experienced opportunist, gave him the right direction. Zinovy Fomin immediately concludes that Rostovsky is the murderer and begins to follow him.
Yachmenev does not interfere. He himself decides to get acquainted with the beautiful teacher. He attends literature class, during which he listens with some bewilderment to the essay topics the teacher suggests to the students: "Why is Onegin unworthy of Tatyana?" and "What would have happened to the novel Eugene Onegin if it had not included the image of Tatyana?" Alla Grigoryevna reports that the absurd topics were sent from Shkolono, but suggested by Academician Zubarev himself.
Returning to the library, Yachmenev sees that the manuscript has been torn up again. He guesses that someone needs to destroy the manuscript about Ivan the Terrible! They're doing this a second time... Why are they tearing it up instead of taking it with them? Georgy Borisovich senses in his heart that none of the academy's employees are capable of committing a criminal offense. He knew from experience that innocent people are always caught off guard at the scene of a crime, and criminals don't go there. They have no business there.
The investigator collects the scraps of the manuscript, and at that moment, in the library, where no one else was, a distinct, quiet, but ominous sound is heard: hee-hee-hee! Yachmenev, horrified, begins to suspect mysticism.
He dismisses his assistants. First, he sends Zinovy Fomin to the historical archive to check if there is a deed of gift from Empress Catherine II to the mansion where the library is located. The search for the historical document will prove so difficult that Fomin will spend two years in the archives, find Catherine's deed to the mansion, become a leading expert on the Catherine era, quit criminal investigation, defend his dissertation, and join the Academy of School Sciences.
Having gotten rid of Fomin, Yachmenev finally decides to read the notorious manuscript. He secludes himself in the library. There, Ivan Shalyto finds him. Behind the painting, in a narrow, dusty space between the wall and the back of the canvas, Yachmenev lies bound hand and foot, with a gag sticking out of his boss's mouth!
Yachmenev guesses who tied him up and shoved him behind the painting. His gaze falls on Kuzmin's watercolor for Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin." This watercolor previously depicted Onegin on the banks of the Neva. The landscape remained, Onegin disappeared, but he appeared on an old engraving of St. Petersburg against the backdrop of the Mikhailovsky Palace.
Yachmenev sends Ivan to the literary archive with the task of establishing whether Onegin liked to stroll by the Mikhailovsky Palace. Ivan Efremovich will spend two years within the archive's walls, establish that Eugene loved to stroll by the Mikhailovsky Palace, become a leading expert on Onegin, defend his dissertation, and take a job at the Academy of School Sciences.
Yachmenev comes to the conclusion that the usual methods of realism cannot be used in this matter, and turns to the other world. He locks the door and turns out the light. The antique crystal chandelier has dimmed. The faint, swaying glow of the street lamp created an eerie mood. An ominous wind howled outside the window. Somewhere a clock chimed loudly. In a word, everything was as it should be!
Ivan the Terrible stepped out of Repin's painting, a plump lady of Balzac's age fluttered out of Catherine's portrait, a young man dressed like a London dandy jumped out of an old engraving of St. Petersburg and smiled charmingly.
Yachmenev said quietly but clearly: help!
They inform the investigator that they have convicted Academician Zubarev of opportunism, unscrupulousness, careerism, and for desecrating literature and history. As an argument, Onegin refers to the 8th grade literature textbook and essay topics, Catherine complains that she was completely thrown out of the textbooks, and Ivan the Terrible, having read Zubarev's manuscript, fell into such a rage that he lost his temper and hit the academician on the head with his staff.
Yachmenev gathered the academy staff in the library and reported that Sergei Ivanovich Zubarev was killed by Ivan the Terrible, who acted in a conspiracy with Catherine the Second, and Onegin was against the murder, but was unable to prevent it. Georgy Borisovich advised the staff to be careful with history and literature in their research work, lest they suffer the same fate as Zubarev.
The staff were silent. They did not understand whether the investigator was joking or had gone mad.
He left, misunderstood by people who were not given the opportunity to cross the line of reality, returning to a familiar and kind world.
P. S. A month and a half later, a phone call woke investigator Yachmenev at four o'clock in the morning.
"That's a ghost speaking!" said an unfamiliar male voice. "I just killed a film director who was making a film on a historical theme."