the same I must make you realize. . . . It's my duty. You see, there are rumors that you are romancing with that . . . cook. . . . It's nothing to do with me, but . . . flirt with her, kiss her . . . as you please, but don't let it be so public, please. I entreat you! Don't forget that you're a schoolmaster.'
Ahineev turned cold and faint. He went home like a man stung by a whole swarm of bees, like a man scalded with boiling water. As he walked home, it seemed to him that the whole town was looking at him as though he were smeared with pitch. At home fresh trouble awaited him.
'Why aren't you gobbling up your food as usual?' his wife asked him at dinner. 'What are you so pensive about? Brooding over your amours? Pining for your Marfa? I know all about it, Mohammedan! Kind friends have opened my eyes! O-o-o! . . . you savage!'
And she slapped him in the face. He got up from the table, not feeling the earth under his feet, and without his hat or coat, made his way to Vankin. He found him at home.
'You scoundrel!' he addressed him. 'Why have you covered me with mud before all the town? Why did you set this slander going about me?'
'What slander? What are you talking about?'
'Who was it gossiped of my kissing Marfa? Wasn't it you? Tell me that. Wasn't it you, you brigand?'
Vankin blinked and twitched in every fibre of his battered countenance, raised his eyes to the icon and articulated, 'God blast me! Strike me blind and lay me out, if I said a single word about you! May I be left without house and home, may I be stricken with worse than cholera!'
Vankin's sincerity did not admit of doubt. It was evidently not he who was the author of the slander.
'But who, then, who?' Ahineev wondered, going over all his acquaintances in his mind and beating himself on the breast. 'Who, then?'
Who, then? We, too, ask the reader.
* * *
The Swedish Match
I
ON the morning of October 6, 1885, a well-dressed young man presented himself at the office of the police superintendent of the 2nd division of the S. district, and announced that his employer, a retired cornet of the guards, called Mark Ivanovitch Klyauzov, had been murdered. The young man was pale and extremely agitated as he made this announcement. His hands trembled and there was a look of horror in his eyes.
'To whom have I the honour of speaking?' the superintendent asked him.
'Psyekov, Klyauzov's steward. Agricultural and engineering expert.'
The police superintendent, on reaching the spot with Psyekov and the necessary witnesses, found the position as follows.
Masses of people were crowding about the lodge in which Klyauzov lived. The news of the event had flown round the neighbourhood with the rapidity of lightning, and, thanks to its being a holiday, the people were flocking to the lodge from all the neighbouring villages. There was a regular hubbub of talk. Pale and tearful faces were to be seen here and there. The door into Klyauzov's bedroom was found to be locked. The key was in the lock on the inside.
'Evidently the criminals made their way in by the window' Psyekov observed, as they examined the door.
They went into the garden into which the bedroom window looked. The window had a gloomy, ominous air. It was covered by a faded green curtain. One corner of the curtain was slightly turned back, which made it possible to peep into the bedroom.
'Has anyone of you looked in at the window?' inquired the superintendent.
'No, your honour,' said Yefrem, the gardener, a little, grey-haired old man with the face of a veteran non- commissioned officer. 'No one feels like looking when they are shaking in every limb!'
'Ech, Mark Ivanitch! Mark Ivanitch!' sighed the superintendent, as he looked at the window. 'I told you that you would come to a bad end! I told you, poor dear--you wouldn't listen! Dissipation leads to no good!'
'It's thanks to Yefrem,' said Psyekov. 'We should never have guessed it but for him. It was he who first thought that something was wrong. He came to me this morning and said: 'Why is it our master hasn't waked up for so long? He hasn't been out of his bedroom for a whole week! When he said that to me I was struck all of a heap. . . . The thought flashed through my mind at once. He hasn't made an appearance since Saturday of last week, and to-day's Sunday. Seven days is no joke!'
'Yes, poor man,' the superintendent sighed again. ' A clever fellow, well-educated, and so good-hearted. There was no one like him, one may say, in company. But a rake; the kingdom of heaven be his! I'm not surprised at anything with him! Stepan,' he said, addressing one of the witnesses, 'ride off this minute to my house and send Andryushka to the police captain's, let him report to him. Say Mark Ivanitch has been murdered! Yes, and run to the inspector -- why should he sit in comfort doing nothing? Let him come here. And you go yourself as fast as you can to the examining magistrate, Nikolay Yermolaitch, and tell him to come here. Wait a bit, I will write him a note.'
The police superintendent stationed watchmen round the lodge, and went off to the steward's to have tea. Ten minutes later he was sitting on a stool, carefully nibbling lumps of sugar, and sipping tea as hot as a red-hot coal.
'There it is! . . .' he said to Psyekov, 'there it is! . . . a gentleman, and a well-to-do one, too . . . a favourite of the gods, one may say, to use Pushkin's expression, and what has he made of it? Nothing! He gave himself up to drinking and debauchery, and . . . here now . . . he has been murdered!'
Two hours later the examining magistrate drove up. Nikolay Yermolaitch Tchubikov (that was the magistrate's name), a tall, thick-set old man of sixty, had been hard at work for a quarter of a century. He was known to the whole district as an honest, intelligent, energetic man, devoted to his work. His invariable companion, assistant, and secretary, a tall young man of six and twenty, called Dyukovsky, arrived on the scene of action with him.
'Is it possible, gentlemen?' Tchubikov began, going into Psyekov's room and rapidly shaking hands with everyone. 'Is it possible? Mark Ivanitch? Murdered? No, it's impossible! Imposs-i-ble!'
'There it is,' sighed the superintendent
'Merciful heavens! Why I saw him only last Friday. At the fair at Tarabankovo! Saving your presence, I drank a glass of vodka with him!'
'There it is,' the superintendent sighed once more.
They heaved sighs, expressed their horror, drank a glass of tea each, and went to the lodge.
'Make way!' the police inspector shouted to the crowd.
On going into the lodge the examining magistrate first of all set to work to inspect the door into the bedroom. The door turned out to be made of deal, painted yellow, and not to have been tampered with. No special traces that might have served as evidence could be found. They proceeded to break open the door.
'I beg you, gentlemen, who are not concerned, to retire,' said the examining magistrate, when, after long banging and cracking, the door yielded to the axe and the chisel. 'I ask this in the interests of the investigation. . . . Inspector, admit no one!'
Tchubikov, his assistant, and the police superintendent opened the door and hesitatingly, one after the other, walked into the room. The following spectacle met their eyes. In the solitary window stood a big wooden bedstead with an immense feather bed on it. On the rumpled feather bed lay a creased and crumpled quilt. A pillow, in a cotton pillow case -- also much creased, was on the floor. On a little table beside the bed lay a silver watch, and silver coins to the value of twenty kopecks. Some sulphur matches lay there too. Except the bed, the table, and a solitary chair, there was no furniture in the room. Looking under the bed, the superintendent saw two dozen empty bottles, an old straw hat, and a jar of vodka. Under the table lay one boot, covered with dust. Taking a look round the room, Tchubikov frowned and flushed crimson.
'The blackguards!' he muttered, clenching his fists.
'And where is Mark Ivanitch?' Dyukovsky asked quietly.
'I beg you not to put your spoke in,' Tchubikov answered roughly. 'Kindly examine the floor. This is the second
