into which the bedroom window looked. The
window had a gloomy, ominous air. It was covered by a faded green
curtain. One corner of the curtain was slightly turned back, which
made it possible to peep into the bedroom.

"Has anyone of you looked in at the window?" inquired the superintendent.

"No, your honour," said Yefrem, the gardener, a little, grey-haired
old man with the face of a veteran non-commissioned officer. "No
one feels like looking when they are shaking in every limb!"

"Ech, Mark Ivanitch! Mark Ivanitch!" sighed the superintendent, as
he looked at the window. "I told you that you would come to a bad
end! I told you, poor dear--you wouldn't listen! Dissipation leads
to no good!"

"It's thanks to Yefrem," said Psyekov. "We should never have guessed
it but for him. It was he who first thought that something was
wrong. He came to me this morning and said: 'Why is it our master
hasn't waked up for so long? He hasn't been out of his bedroom for
a whole week! When he said that to me I was struck all of a heap
. . . . The thought flashed through my mind at once. He hasn't made
an appearance since Saturday of last week, and to-day's Sunday.
Seven days is no joke!"

"Yes, poor man," the superintendent sighed again. "A clever fellow,
well-educated, and so good-hearted. There was no one like him, one
may say, in company. But a rake; the kingdom of heaven be his! I'm
not surprised at anything with him! Stepan," he said, addressing
one of the witnesses, "ride off this minute to my house and send
Andryushka to the police captain's, let him report to him. Say Mark
Ivanitch has been murdered! Yes, and run to the inspector--why
should he sit in comfort doing nothing? Let him come here. And you
go yourself as fast as you can to the examining magistrate, Nikolay
Yermolaitch, and tell him to come here. Wait a bit, I will write
him a note."

The police superintendent stationed watchmen round the lodge, and
went off to the steward's to have tea. Ten minutes later he was
sitting on a stool, carefully nibbling lumps of sugar, and sipping
tea as hot as a red-hot coal.

"There it is! . . ." he said to Psyekov, "there it is! . . . a
gentleman, and a well-to-do one, too . . . a favourite of the gods,
one may say, to use Pushkin's expression, and what has he made of
it? Nothing! He gave himself up to drinking and debauchery, and
. . . here now . . . he has been murdered!"

Two hours later the examining magistrate drove up.