o the vital point. The old man's lying there now with his skull
broken, while I--after dramatically describing how I wanted to kill him,
and how I snatched up the pestle--I suddenly run away from the window. A
romance! Poetry! As though one could believe a fellow on his word. Ha ha!
You are scoffers, gentlemen!"

And he swung round on his chair so that it creaked.

"And did you notice," asked the prosecutor suddenly, as though not
observing Mitya's excitement, "did you notice when you ran away from the
window, whether the door into the garden was open?"

"No, it was not open."

"It was not?"

"It was shut. And who could open it? Bah! the door. Wait a bit!" he seemed
suddenly to bethink himself, and almost with a start:

"Why, did you find the door open?"

"Yes, it was open."

"Why, who could have opened it if you did not open it yourselves?" cried
Mitya, greatly astonished.

"The door stood open, and your father's murderer undoubtedly went in at
that door, and, having accomplished the crime, went out again by the same
door," the prosecutor pronounced deliberately, as though chiseling out
each word separately. "That is perfectly clear. The murder was committed
in the room and _not through the __ window_; that is absolutely certain
from the examination that has been made, from the position of the body and
everything. There can be no doubt of that circumstance."

Mitya was absolutely dumbfounded.

"But that's utterly impossible!" he cried, completely at a loss. "I ... I
didn't go in.... I tell you positively, definitely, the door was shut the
whole time I was in the garden, and when I ran out of the garden. I only
stood at the window and saw him through the window. That's all, that's
all.... I remember to the last minute. And if I didn't remember, it would
be just the same. I know it, for no one knew the signals except
Smerdyakov, and me, and the dead man. And he wouldn't have opened the door
to any one in the world without the signals."

"Signals? What signals?" asked the prosecutor, with greedy, almost
hysterical, curiosity. He instantly lost all trace of his reserve and
dignity. He asked the question with a sort of cringing timidity. He
scented an important fact of which he had known nothing, and was already
filled with dread that Mitya might be unwilling to disclose it.

"So you didn't know!" Mitya winked at him with a malicious and mocking
smile. "What if I won't tell you? From whom could you find out?