Tales of Chekhov 12- The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories

caught him there.'

'And he didn't deny the woman in black!' said Dyukovsky, laughing. 'I am awfully worried over that Swedish match, though! I can't endure it any longer. Good-bye! I am going!'

Dyukovsky put on his cap and went off. Tchubikov began interrogating

Akulka.

Akulka declared that she knew nothing about it. . . .

'I have lived with you and with nobody else!' she said.

At six o'clock in the evening Dyukovsky returned. He was more excited than ever. His hands trembled so much that he could not unbutton his overcoat. His cheeks were burning. It was evident that he had not come back without news.

'Veni, vidi, vici!' he cried, dashing into Tchubikov's room and sinking into an arm- chair. 'I vow on my honour, I begin to believe in my own genius. Listen, damnation take us! Listen and wonder, old friend! It's comic and it's sad. You have three in your grasp already . . . haven't you? I have found a fourth murderer, or rather murderess, for it is a woman! And what a woman! I would have given ten years of my life merely to touch her shoulders. But . . . listen. I drove to Klyauzovka and proceeded to describe a spiral round it. On the way I visited all the shopkeepers and innkeepers, asking for Swedish matches. Everywhere I was told 'No.' I have been on my round up to now. Twenty times I lost hope, and as many times regained it. I have been on the go all day long, and only an hour ago came upon what I was looking for. A couple of miles from here they gave me a packet of a dozen boxes of matches. One box was missing . . . I asked at once: 'Who bought that box?' 'So-and-so. She took a fancy to them. . . They crackle.' My dear fellow! Nikolay Yermolaitch! What can sometimes be done by a man who has been expelled from a seminary and studied Gaboriau is beyond all conception! From to-day I shall began to respect myself! . . . Ough. . . . Well, let us go!'

'Go where?'

'To her, to the fourth. . . . We must make haste, or . . . I shall explode with impatience! Do you know who she is? You will never guess. The young wife of our old police superintendent, Yevgraf Kuzmitch, Olga Petrovna; that's who it is! She bought that box of matches!'

'You . . . you. . . . Are you out of your mind?'

'It's very natural! In the first place she smokes, and in the second she was head over ears in love with Klyauzov. He rejected her love for the sake of an Akulka. Revenge. I remember now, I once came upon them behind the screen in the kitchen. She was cursing him, while he was smoking her cigarette and puffing the smoke into her face. But do come along; make haste, for it is getting dark already . . . . Let us go!'

'I have not gone so completely crazy yet as to disturb a respectable, honourable woman at night for the sake of a wretched boy!'

'Honourable, respectable. . . . You are a rag then, not an examining magistrate! I have never ventured to abuse you, but now you force me to it! You rag! you old fogey! Come, dear Nikolay Yermolaitch, I entreat you!'

The examining magistrate waved his hand in refusal and spat in disgust.

'I beg you! I beg you, not for my own sake, but in the interests of justice! I beseech you, indeed! Do me a favour, if only for once in your life!'

Dyukovsky fell on his knees.

'Nikolay Yermolaitch, do be so good! Call me a scoundrel, a worthless wretch if I am in error about that woman! It is such a case, you know! It is a case! More like a novel than a case. The fame of it will be all over Russia. They will make you examining magistrate for particularly important cases! Do understand, you unreasonable old man!'

The examining magistrate frowned and irresolutely put out his hand towards his hat.

'Well, the devil take you!' he said, 'let us go.'

It was already dark when the examining magistrate's waggonette rolled up to the police superintendent's door.

'What brutes we are!' said Tchubikov, as he reached for the bell.

'We are disturbing people.'

'Never mind, never mind, don't be frightened. We will say that one of the springs has broken.'

Tchubikov and Dyukovsky were met in the doorway by a tall, plump woman of three and twenty, with eyebrows as black as pitch and full red lips. It was Olga Petrovna herself.

'Ah, how very nice,' she said, smiling all over her face. 'You are just in time for supper. My Yevgraf Kuzmitch is not at home. . . . He is staying at the priest's. But we can get on without him. Sit down. Have you come from an inquiry?'

'Yes. . . . We have broken one of our springs, you know,' began Tchubikov, going into the drawing-room and sitting down in an easy-chair.

'Take her by surprise at once and overwhelm her,' Dyukovsky whispered to him.

'A spring .. . er . . . yes. . . . We just drove up. . . .'

'Overwhelm her, I tell you! She will guess if you go drawing it out.'

'Oh, do as you like, but spare me,' muttered Tchubikov, getting up and walking to the window. 'I can't! You cooked the mess, you eat it!'

'Yes, the spring,' Dyukovsky began, going up to the superintendent's wife and wrinkling his long nose. 'We have not come in to . . . er-er-er . . . supper, nor to see Yevgraf Kuzmitch. We have come to ask you, madam, where is Mark Ivanovitch whom you have murdered?'

'What? What Mark Ivanovitch?' faltered the superintendent's wife, and her full face was suddenly in one instant suffused with crimson. 'I . . . don't understand.'

'I ask you in the name of the law! Where is Klyauzov? We know all about it!'

'Through whom?' the superintendent's wife asked slowly, unable to face Dyukovsky's eyes.

'Kindly inform us where he is!'

'But how did you find out? Who told you?'

'We know all about it. I insist in the name of the law.'

The examining magistrate, encouraged by the lady's confusion, went up to her.

'Tell us and we will go away. Otherwise we . . .'

'What do you want with him?'

'What is the object of such questions, madam? We ask you for information. You are trembling, confused. . . . Yes, he has been murdered, and if you will have it, murdered by you! Your accomplices have betrayed you!'

The police superintendent's wife turned pale.

'Come along,' she said quietly, wringing her hands. 'He is hidden in the bath-house. Only for God's sake, don't tell my husband! I implore you! It would be too much for him.'

The superintendent's wife took a big key from the wall, and led her visitors through the kitchen and the passage into the yard. It was dark in the yard. There was a drizzle of fine rain. The superintendent's wife went on ahead. Tchubikov and Dyukovsky strode after her through the long grass, breathing in the smell of wild hemp and slops, which made a squelching sound under their feet. It was a big yard. Soon there were no more pools of slops, and their feet felt ploughed land. In the darkness they saw the silhouette of trees, and among the trees a little house with a crooked chimney.

'This is the bath-house,' said the superintendent's wife, 'but, I implore you, do not tell anyone.'

Going up to the bath-house, Tchubikov and Dyukovsky saw a large padlock on the door.

'Get ready your candle-end and matches,' Tchubikov whispered to his assistant.

The superintendent's wife unlocked the padlock and let the visitors into the bath-house. Dyukovsky struck a match and lighted up the entry. In the middle of it stood a table. On the table, beside a podgy little samovar, was a soup tureen with some cold cabbage-soup in it, and a dish with traces of some sauce on it.

'Go on!'

They went into the next room, the bath-room. There, too, was a table. On the table there stood a big dish of ham, a bottle of vodka, plates, knives and forks.