t are only pawns, then one
would blunder and all would be lost." (Exclamations. "Yes, yes." General
approval.)

"Damn it all, what do you want?"

"What connection is there between the common cause and the petty
intrigues of Mr. Stavrogin?" cried Liputin, boiling over. "Suppose he
is in some mysterious relation to the centre, if that legendary centre
really exists at all, it's no concern of ours. And meantime a murder has
been committed, the police have been roused; if they follow the thread
they may find what it starts from."

"If Stavrogin and you are caught, we shall be caught too," added the
authority on the peasantry.

"And to no good purpose for the common cause," Virginsky concluded
despondently.

"What nonsense! The murder is a chance crime; it was committed by Fedka
for the sake of robbery."

"H'm! Strange coincidence, though," said Liputin, wriggling.

"And if you will have it, it's all through you."

"Through us?"

"In the first place, you, Liputin, had a share in the intrigue yourself;
and the second chief point is, you were ordered to get Lebyadkin away
and given money to do it; and what did you do? If you'd got him away
nothing would have happened."

"But wasn't it you yourself who suggested the idea that it would be a
good thing to set him on to read his verses?"

"An idea is not a command. The command was to get him away."

"Command! Rather a queer word.... On the contrary, your orders were to
delay sending him off."

"You made a mistake and showed your foolishness and self-will. The
murder was the work of Fedka, and he carried it out alone for the sake
of robbery. You heard the gossip and believed it. You were scared.
Stavrogin is not such a fool, and the proof of that is he left the town
at twelve o'clock after an interview with the vice-governor; if there
were anything in it they would not let him go to Petersburg in broad
daylight."

"But we are not making out that Mr. Stavrogin committed the murder
himself," Liputin rejoined spitefully and unceremoniously. "He may have
known nothing about it, like me; and you know very well that I knew
nothing about it, though I am mixed up in it like mutton in a hash."

"Whom are you accusing?" said Pyotr Stepanovitch, looking at him darkly.

"Those whose interest it is to burn down towns."

"You make matters worse by wriggling out of it. However, won't you read
this and pass it to the others, simply as a fact of interest?"

He pulled out of