The prisoner Kartínkin never stopped moving his cheeks. Bótchkova sat quite still and straight, only now and then scratching her head under the kerchief.
Máslova sat immovable, gazing at the reader; only now and then she gave a slight start, as if wishing to reply, blushed, sighed heavily, and changed the position of her hands, looked round, and again fixed her eyes on the reader.
Nekhlúdoff sat in the front row on his high-backed chair, without removing his pince-nez, and looked at Máslova, while a complicated and fierce struggle was going on in his soul.
X
The indictment ran as follows:—
“On the 17th of January, 18—, in the lodging-house Mauritánia, occurred the sudden death of the Second Guild merchant, Theropónt Emiliánovich Smelkóff, of Kourgán.”
The local police doctor of the fourth district certified that death was due to rupture of the heart, owing to the excessive use of alcoholic liquids. The body of the said Smelkóff was interred. After several days had elapsed, the merchant Timókhin, a fellow-townsman and companion of the said Smelkóff, returned from St. Petersburg, and hearing the circumstances that accompanied the death of the latter, notified his suspicions that the death was caused by poison, given with intent to rob the said Smelkóff of his money. This suspicion was corroborated on inquiry, which proved:—
“1. That shortly before his death the said Smelkóff had received the sum of 3,800 roubles from the bank. When an inventory of the property of the deceased was made, only 312 roubles and 16 copecks were found.
“2. The whole day and night preceding his death the said Smelkóff spent with Lúbka (alias Katerína Máslova) at her home and in the lodging-house Mauritánia, which she also visited at the said Smelkóff’s request during his absence, to get some money, which she took out of his portmanteau in the presence of the servants of the lodging-house Mauritánia, Euphémia Bótchkova and Simeon Kartínkin, with a key given her by the said Smelkóff. In the portmanteau opened by the said Máslova, the said Bótchkova and Kartínkin saw packets of one-hundred-rouble banknotes.
“3. On the said Smelkóff’s return to the lodging-house Mauritánia, together with Lúbka, the latter, in accordance with the attendant Kartínkin’s advice, gave the said Smelkóff some white powder given to her by the said Kartínkin, dissolved in brandy.
“4. The next morning the said Lúbka (alias Katerína Máslova) sold to her mistress, the witness Kitáeva, a brothel-keeper, a diamond ring given to her, as she alleged, by the said Smelkóff.
“5. The housemaid of the lodging-house Mauritánia, Euphémia Bótchkova, placed to her account in the local Commercial Bank 1,800 roubles. The postmortem examination of the body of the said Smelkóff and the chemical analysis of his intestines proved beyond doubt the presence of poison in the organism, so that there is reason to believe that the said Smelkóff’s death was caused by poisoning.
“When cross-examined, the accused, Máslova, Bótchkova, and Kartínkin, pleaded not guilty, deposing—Máslova, that she had really been sent by Smelkóff from the brothel, where she ‘works,’ as she expresses it, to the lodging-house Mauritánia to get the merchant some money, and that, having unlocked the portmanteau with a key given her by the merchant, she took out forty roubles, as she was told to do, and that she had taken nothing more; that Bótchkova and Kartínkin, in whose presence she unlocked and locked the portmanteau, could testify to the truth of the statement.
“She gave this further evidence—that when she came to the lodging-house for the second time she did, at the instigation of Simeon Kartínkin, give Smelkóff some kind of powder, which she thought was a narcotic, in a glass of brandy, hoping he would fall asleep and that she would be able to get away from him; and that Smelkóff, having beaten her, himself gave her the ring when she cried and threatened to go away.
“The accused, Euphémia Bótchkova, stated that she knew nothing about the missing money, that she had not even gone into Smelkóff’s room, but that Lúbka had been busy there all by herself; that if anything had been stolen, it must have been done by Lúbka when she came with the merchant’s key to get his money.”
At this point Máslova gave a start, opened her mouth, and looked at Bótchkova. “When,” continued the secretary, “the receipt for 1,800 roubles8 from the bank was shown to Bótchkova, and she was asked where she had obtained the money, she said that it was her own earnings for twelve years, and those of Simeon, whom she was going to marry. The accused Simeon Kartínkin, when first examined, confessed that he and Bótchkova, at the instigation of Máslova, who had come with the key from the brothel, had stolen the money and divided it equally among themselves and Máslova.” Here Máslova again started, half-rose from her seat, and, blushing scarlet, began to say something, but was stopped by the usher. “At last,” the secretary continued, reading, “Kartínkin confessed also that he had supplied the powders in order to get Smelkóff to sleep. When examined the second time he denied having had anything to do with the stealing of the money or giving Máslova the powders, accusing her of having done it alone.
“Concerning the money placed in the bank by Bótchkova, he said the same as she, that is, that the money was given to them both by the lodgers in tips during twelve years’ service.”
The indictment concluded as follows:—
“In consequence of the foregoing, the peasant of the village Bórki, Simeon Kartínkin, thirty-three years of age, the meschánka Euphémia Bótchkova, forty-three years of age, and the meschánka Katerína Máslova, twenty-seven years of age, are accused of having on the 17th day of January, 188—, jointly stolen from the said merchant, Smelkóff, a ring and money, to
