I have walked the fog-choked alleys of the city and seen many a desperate soul, but rarely have I encountered a blackguard as slippery as one Maxim V. This fellow, a rogue of the first water, played a game of deception that would make a seasoned pickpocket blush.

For a year, Maxim courted a lady named Victoria. But when the seed of their passion took root and the lady fell pregnant, the coward’s heart failed him. He demanded an abortion, yet when the hour came to pay the surgeon's fee, Maxim vanished into the ether. Victoria reached for the telephone, hoping for coin, but found only a stranger's voice. 'Maxim is dead,' the voice croaked, 'interred in a distant town. Stay away, for only the kin shall mourn.'

Imagine the poor soul's grief! But fate, as I always say, has a way of exposing a fraud. Three months passed, and lo! A digital portrait—a 'story', as the moderns call it—surfaced. There sat Maxim, not in a pine coffin, but at the altar, grinning like a Cheshire cat beside a new bride!

Victoria, fueled by a righteous fire, sought out the new wife. The two ladies, joined in their misery, discovered that Maxim was no mere liar, but a professional swindler. He had played the same trick on several other wretches, selling their carriages—fine motor-cars of the current age—amounting to some twenty-five million rubles! He had even spirited away his new bride's BMW X5 to furnish himself with a fresh mount, leaving the ladies in the lurch.

Now, the law has stepped in. The new wife, seeing the viper in her bed, has filed for divorce, and together with Victoria, has brought the matter before the constables. As for Maxim? The scoundrel denies everything! He claims he knew naught of the abortion and swears he is no thief. A bold lie, but the detectives—those keen-eyed sleuths—are already on his scent.

It puts me in mind of a similar farce from the far East, in China. A drunkard, caught thrice by the inspectors and fearing the dungeon, bought himself a coffin and scattered apothecary vials across his floor to mimic a fatal overdose. He fled to the South, thinking he had cheated the gallows. But whether in the East or the heart of Moscow, the truth always finds its way home, and the rogue eventually meets his reckoning.