The Time and the Place by Naguib Mahfouz

Author:Naguib Mahfouz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

By a Person Unknown

There was nothing unusual in the flat to attract attention, nothing that could be of any help to an investigator. It consisted of two rooms and an entrance hall, and in general was extremely simple. What was truly worthy of surprise was the fact that the bedroom should have remained in its natural state, retaining its normal tidiness despite the ghastly murder that had been committed there. Even the bed was undisturbed, or altered only to the extent that occurs when a bed has been slept in. However, the person lying on it was not asleep but had been murdered, the blood not yet dry. As evidenced by the mark of the cord around the neck and the protruding eyeballs, he had been strangled. Blood had coagulated around the nose and mouth, but apart from this there was no sign of any struggle or resistance in the bed, in the bedroom, or in the rest of the flat. Everything was normal, usual, familiar.

The officer in charge of the case stood aghast, his trained eyes searching out the corners, examining and noting, but achieving nothing. Without doubt he was standing before a crime, and there was no crime without a criminal, and the criminal could not be brought to light other than through some clue. Here all the windows were securely closed, so the murderer had come in and gone out by the door. Also, the murdered man had died of strangulation with a cord. How, then, had the murderer been able to wind the cord around the man’s neck? Perhaps he had been able to do so while his victim was asleep. This was the acceptable explanation, there being no trace of any resistance. Another explanation was that he had taken his victim unawares from behind, done him in, laid him out on the bed, put everything back in order, and then gone off without leaving a trace. What a man! What nerves! He operated with patience, deliberation, calm, and precision, as happens only in fiction. In control of himself, of the murdered man, of the crime, and of the whole location—then off he goes, safe and sound! What a murderer!

In his mind the officer arranged the investigatory steps (the motive for the crime, the questioning of the concierge and the old servant woman), and also made a number of possible hypotheses. As much as he could he suppressed his strong emotions, then went back to thinking about the strange criminal who had crept into the flat, done away with a human being, and then gone off without a trace, like a delightful waft of breeze or shaft of sunlight. He searched the cupboard, the desk, and the clothes, and found a wallet containing ten pounds; he also came across the man’s watch and a gold ring. It would seem that theft was not the motive for the crime. What, then, was the motive?

He asked for the concierge to be brought for questioning. He was an elderly Nubian who had worked in the small building on Barrad Street in Abbasiyya for many years.

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