ght a
very interesting piece of information.

"I was a bit drunk," he said. "I was with my pal till midnight. On my
way home, as I was drunk, I went into the river for a bath. I was
taking a bath, when I looked up. Two men were walking along the dam,
carrying something black. 'Shoo!' I cried at them. They got scared,
and went off like the wind toward Makareff's cabbage garden. Strike me
dead, if they weren't carrying away the master!"

That same day, toward evening, Psyekoff and Nicholas were arrested and
brought under guard to the district town. In the town they were
committed to the cells of the prison.

II

A fortnight passed.

It was morning. The magistrate Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch was sitting in
his office before a green table, turning over the papers of the
"Klausoff case"; Dukovski was striding restlessly up and down, like a
wolf in a cage.

"You are convinced of the guilt of Nicholas and Psyekoff," he said,
nervously plucking at his young beard. "Why will you not believe in
the guilt of Maria Ivanovna? Are there not proofs enough for you?"

"I don't say I am not convinced. I am convinced, but somehow I don't
believe it! There are no real proofs, but just a kind of
philosophizing--fanaticism, this and that----"

"You can't do without an ax and bloodstained sheets. Those jurists!
Very well, I'll prove it to you! You will stop sneering at the
psychological side of the affair! To Siberia with your Maria Ivanovna!
I will prove it! If philosophy is not enough for you, I have something
substantial for you. It will show you how correct my philosophy is.
Just give me permission----"

"What are you going on about?"

"About the safety match! Have you forgotten it? I haven't! I am going
to find out who struck it in the murdered man's room. It was not
Nicholas that struck it; it was not Psyekoff, for neither of them had
any matches when they were examined; it was the third person, Maria
Ivanovna. I will prove it to you. Just give me permission to go
through the district to find out."

"That's enough! Sit down. Let us go on with the examination."

Dukovski sat down at a little table, and plunged his long nose in a
bundle of papers.

"Bring in Nicholas Tetekhoff!" cried the examining magistrate.

They brought Nicholas in. Nicholas was pale and thin as a rail. He was
trembling.

"Tetekhoff!" began Chubikoff. "In 1879 you were tried in the Court of
the First Division, convicted of theft, and sentenced to i