who is the third?
Nikolashka and Psyekov held him. Who was it smothered him? Psyekov
is timid, easily embarrassed, altogether a coward. People like
Nikolashka are not equal to smothering with a pillow, they set to
work with an axe or a mallet. . . . Some third person must have
smothered him, but who?"

Dyukovsky pulled his cap over his eyes, and pondered. He was silent
till the waggonette had driven up to the examining magistrate's
house.

"Eureka!" he said, as he went into the house, and took off his
overcoat. "Eureka, Nikolay Yermolaitch! I can't understand how it
is it didn't occur to me before. Do you know who the third is?"

"Do leave off, please! There's supper ready. Sit down to supper!"

Tchubikov and Dyukovsky sat down to supper. Dyukovsky poured himself
out a wine-glassful of vodka, got up, stretched, and with sparkling
eyes, said:

"Let me tell you then that the third person who collaborated with
the scoundrel Psyekov and smothered him was a woman! Yes! I am
speaking of the murdered man's sister, Marya Ivanovna!"

Tchubikov coughed over his vodka and fastened his eyes on Dyukovsky.

"Are you . . . not quite right? Is your head . . . not quite right?
Does it ache?"

"I am quite well. Very good, suppose I have gone out of my mind,
but how do you explain her confusion on our arrival? How do you
explain her refusal to give information? Admitting that that is
trivial--very good! All right!--but think of the terms they were
on! She detested her brother! She is an Old Believer, he was a
profligate, a godless fellow . . . that is what has bred hatred
between them! They say he succeeded in persuading her that he was
an angel of Satan! He used to practise spiritualism in her presence!"

"Well, what then?"

"Don't you understand? She's an Old Believer, she murdered him
through fanaticism! She has not merely slain a wicked man, a
profligate, she has freed the world from Antichrist--and that she
fancies is her merit, her religious achievement! Ah, you don't know
these old maids, these Old Believers! You should read Dostoevsky!
And what does Lyeskov say . . . and Petchersky! It's she, it's she,
I'll stake my life on it. She smothered him! Oh, the fiendish woman!
Wasn't she, perhaps, standing before the ikons when we went in to
put us off the scent? 'I'll stand up and say my prayers,' she said
to herself, 'they will think I am calm and don't expect them.'
That's the method of all novices in crime. Dear Nikola