ver here! Wait; I'll write him a note!"

The inspector posted sentinels around the wing, wrote a letter to the
examining magistrate, and then went over to the director's for a glass
of tea. Ten minutes later he was sitting on a stool, carefully nibbling
a lump of sugar, and swallowing the scalding tea.

"There you are!" he was saying to Psyekoff; "there you are! A noble by
birth! a rich man--a favourite of the gods, you may say, as Pushkin has
it, and what did he come to? He drank and dissipated and--there you
are--he's murdered."

After a couple of hours the examining magistrate drove up. Nicholas
Yermolaiyevitch Chubikoff--for that was the magistrate's name--was a
tall, fleshy old man of sixty, who had been wrestling with the duties of
his office for a quarter of a century. Everybody in the district knew
him as an honest man, wise, energetic, and in love with his work. He was
accompanied to the scene of the murder by his inveterate companion,
fellow worker, and secretary, Dukovski, a tall young fellow of
twenty-six.

"Is it possible, gentlemen?" cried Chubikoff, entering Psyekoff's room,
and quickly shaking hands with everyone. "Is it possible? Marcus
Ivanovitch? Murdered? No! It is impossible! Im-poss-i-ble!"

"Go in there!" sighed the inspector.

"Lord, have mercy on us! Only last Friday I saw him at the fair in
Farabankoff. I had a drink of vodka with him, save the mark!"

"Go in there!" again sighed the inspector.

They sighed, uttered exclamations of horror, drank a glass of tea each,
and went to the wing.

"Get back!" the orderly cried to the peasants.

Going to the wing, the examining magistrate began his work by examining
the bedroom door. The door proved to be of pine, painted yellow, and was
uninjured. Nothing was found which could serve as a clew. They had to
break in the door.

"Everyone not here on business is requested to keep away!" said the
magistrate, when, after much hammering and shaking, the door yielded to
axe and chisel. "I request this, in the interest of the investigation.
Orderly, don't let anyone in!"

Chubikoff, his assistant, and the inspector opened the door, and
hesitatingly, one after the other, entered the room. Their eyes met the
following sight: Beside the single window stood the big wooden bed with
a huge feather mattress. On the crumpled feather bed lay a tumbled,
crumpled quilt. The pillow, in a cotton pillow-case, also much crumpled,
was dragging on the floor. On th