ning magistrate frowned and irresolutely put out his hand
towards his hat.

"Well, the devil take you!" he said, "let us go."

It was already dark when the examining magistrate's waggonette
rolled up to the police superintendent's door.

"What brutes we are!" said Tchubikov, as he reached for the bell.
"We are disturbing people."

"Never mind, never mind, don't be frightened. We will say that one
of the springs has broken."

Tchubikov and Dyukovsky were met in the doorway by a tall, plump
woman of three and twenty, with eyebrows as black as pitch and full
red lips. It was Olga Petrovna herself.

"Ah, how very nice," she said, smiling all over her face. "You are
just in time for supper. My Yevgraf Kuzmitch is not at home. . . .
He is staying at the priest's. But we can get on without him. Sit
down. Have you come from an inquiry?"

"Yes. . . . We have broken one of our springs, you know," began
Tchubikov, going into the drawing-room and sitting down in an
easy-chair.

"Take her by surprise at once and overwhelm her," Dyukovsky whispered
to him.

"A spring .. . er . . . yes. . . . We just drove up. . . ."

"Overwhelm her, I tell you! She will guess if you go drawing it
out."

"Oh, do as you like, but spare me," muttered Tchubikov, getting up
and walking to the window. "I can't! You cooked the mess, you eat
it!"

"Yes, the spring," Dyukovsky began, going up to the superintendent's
wife and wrinkling his long nose. "We have not come in to . . .
er-er-er . . . supper, nor to see Yevgraf Kuzmitch. We have come
to ask you, madam, where is Mark Ivanovitch whom you have murdered?"

"What? What Mark Ivanovitch?" faltered the superintendent's wife,
and her full face was suddenly in one instant suffused with crimson.
"I . . . don't understand."

"I ask you in the name of the law! Where is Klyauzov? We know all
about it!"

"Through whom?" the superintendent's wife asked slowly, unable to
face Dyukovsky's eyes.

"Kindly inform us where he is!"

"But how did you find out? Who told you?"

"We know all about it. I insist in the name of the law."

The examining magistrate, encouraged by the lady's confusion, went
up to her.

"Tell us and we will go away. Otherwise we . . ."

"What do you want with him?"

"What is the object of such questions, madam? We ask you for
information. You are trembling, confused. . . . Yes, he has been
murdered, and if you will have it, murdered by you! Your accomplices
have betra