The Secret Speech Read Online Free PDF Page B

factory floor where the towering Linotype machines stood, giant mechanical insects:
    – The sons have arrived.
    – Bring them in.
    – With their father’s body in the room?
    – Yes.
    The sons had been allowed to leave, sent home by the militia before Leo could question them. He would apologize that they had to see their father’s body again but he had no intention of trusting secondhand information passed to him by the militia.
    Summoned, Vsevolod and Akvsenti-both in their early twentiesappeared at the door, side by side. Leo introduced himself:
    – I’m Officer Leo Demidov. I understand this must be difficult.
    Neither of them looked at their father’s body, keeping their eyes on Leo. The older son, Vsevolod, spoke:
    – We answered the militia’s questions.
    – My questions won’t take long. Is this room as you found it this morning?
    – Yes, it’s the same.
    Vsevolod was doing all the talking. Akvsenti remained silent, his eyes occasionally flicking up. Leo continued:
    – Was this chair at the table? It might have been knocked over, in the struggle perhaps?
    – The struggle?
    – Between your father and the killer?
    There was silence. Leo continued:
    – The chair’s broken. If you sat on it, it would collapse. It’s odd to have a broken chair in front of a desk. You can’t sit on it.
    Both sons turned toward the chair. Vsevolod replied:
    – You’ve brought us back to talk about a chair?
    – The chair is important. I believe your father used it to hang himself.
    The suggestion should have been ludicrous. They should have been outraged. Yet they remained silent. Sensing his speculation was on target, Leo pressed his theory:
    – I believe your father hanged himself, maybe from one of the overhead beams in the factory. He stood on the chair and then kicked it from under his feet. You found his body this morning. You dragged him here, replaced the chair, not noticing that it had been damaged. One of you, or both of you, cut his throat in an attempt to conceal the scarring from the rope burns. The office was staged as if there was a break-in.
    They were promising students. The suicide of their father might end their careers and destroy their prospects. Suicide, attempted suicide, depression-even vocalizing the desire to end your life-all these things were interpreted as slanders against the State. Suicide, like murder, had no place in the evolution of a higher society.
    The sons were evidently deciding whether or not it was possible to deny the allegation. Leo softened his tone:
    – An autopsy will reveal that his spine is broken. I have to investigate his suicide as rigorously as I would his murder. The reason for his suicide concerns me, not your understandable desire to cover it up.
    The younger son, Akvsenti, answered, speaking for the first time:
    – I cut his throat.
    The young man continued:
    – I was lowering his body. I realized what he’d done to our lives.
    – Do you have any idea why he killed himself?
    – He was drinking. He was depressed about work.
    They were telling the truth yet it was incomplete, either through ignorance or calculation. Leo pressed the matter:
    – A fifty-five-year-old man doesn’t kill himself because his readers got ink on their fingers. Your father has survived far worse troubles than that.
    The older son became angry:
    – I’ve spent four years training to be a doctor. All for nothing-no hospital will hire me now.
    Leo guided them out of the office, onto the factory floor, away from the sight of their father’s body:
    – You didn’t become alarmed that your father hadn’t come home until the morning. You expected him to be working late or you would’ve become concerned last night. If that is the case, why are there no pages of type ready to print? There are four Linotype printing machines. No pages have been set. There’s nothing to indicate any work was being done here.
    They approached the enormous machines. At the front there