mothering, was a woman! Yes-s! I
mean--the murdered man's sister, Maria Ivanovna!"

Chubikoff choked over his vodka, and fixed his eyes on Dukovski.

"You aren't--what's-its-name? Your head isn't what-do-you-call-it? You
haven't a pain in it?"

"I am perfectly well! Very well, let us say that I am crazy; but how
do you explain her confusion when we appeared? How do you explain her
unwillingness to give us any information? Let us admit that these are
trifles. Very well! All right! But remember their relations. She
detested her brother. She never forgave him for living apart from his
wife. She is of the Old Faith, while in her eyes he is a godless
profligate. There is where the germ of her hate was hatched. They say
he succeeded in making her believe that he was an angel of Satan. He
even went in for spiritualism in her presence!"

"Well, what of that?"

"You don't understand? She, as a member of the Old Faith, murdered him
through fanaticism. It was not only that she was putting to death a
weed, a profligate--she was freeing the world of an antichrist!--and
there, in her opinion, was her service, her religious achievement! Oh,
you don't know those old maids of the Old Faith. Read Dostoyevsky! And
what does Lyeskoff say about them, or Petcherski? It was she, and
nobody else, even if you cut me open. She smothered him! O treacherous
woman! wasn't that the reason why she was kneeling before the icons,
when we came in, just to take our attention away? 'Let me kneel down
and pray,' she said to herself, 'and they will think I am tranquil and
did not expect them!' That is the plan of all novices in crime,
Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch, old pal! My dear old man, won't you intrust
this business to me? Let me personally bring it through! Friend, I
began it and I will finish it!"

Chubikoff shook his head and frowned.

"We know how to manage difficult matters ourselves," he said; "and
your business is not to push yourself in where you don't belong. Write
from dictation when you are dictated to; that is your job!"

Dukovski flared up, banged the door, and disappeared.

"Clever rascal!" muttered Chubikoff, glancing after him. "Awfully
clever! But too much of a hothead. I must buy him a cigar case at the
fair as a present."

The next day, early in the morning, a young man with a big head and a
pursed-up mouth, who came from Klausoff's place, was introduced to the
magistrate's office. He said he was the shepherd Daniel, and brou