“Have you been to the scene of the crime?”
“No, I have not been there yet.”
The Assistant Public Prosecutor frowned, passed his white womanish
hand over his freshly washed brow, and began walking about the room.
“I can't understand your reason for not having been there,” he
mumbled. “I should suppose that was the first thing that ought to have
been done. Did you forget or thought it unnecessary?”
“Neither the one nor the other: yesterday I waited for the police, and
intend to go to-day.”
“Now nothing remains there: it has rained all these days, and you have
given the criminal time to obliterate his traces. Of course you placed
a guard at the spot? No? I don't understand!”
And the dandy shrugged his shoulders authoritatively.
“You'd better drink your tea, it's getting cold,” I said, in a tone of
indifference.
“I like it cold.”
The Assistant of the Public Prosecutor bent over the papers, and with
a loud sniff he began to read aloud in an undertone, occasionally
jotting down his remarks and corrections. Two or three times his mouth
was drawn to one side in a sarcastic smile: for some reason neither my
official report nor the doctors' pleased this cunning rogue.* In this
sleek, well-brushed, and cleanly-washed government official, stuffed
full of conceit and a high opinion of his own worth, the pedant was
clearly apparent.
* Kamyshev abuses the Assistant Public Prosecutor quite without
cause. The only thing in which this prosecutor can be blamed is
that his face did not please M. Kamyshev. It would have been more
honest to admit inexperience or intentional mistakes.—A. Ch.
By midday we were on the scene of the crime. It was raining hard. Of
course we neither found spots nor traces; all had been washed away by
the rain. By some chance I found one of the buttons that were missing
on Olga's riding habit, and the Assistant Prosecutor picked up a sort
of reddish pulp, that subsequently proved to be a red wrapper from a
packet of tobacco. At first we stumbled upon a bush which had two
twigs broken at one side. The Assistant Prosecutor was delighted at
finding these twigs. They might have been broken by the criminal and
would therefore indicate the way he had gone after killing Olga. But
the joy of the Prosecutor was unfounded: we soon found a number of
bushes with broken twigs and nibbled leaves; it turned out that a herd
of cattle had passed over the scene of the murder.
After making a plan of the place and questioning the coachmen, we had
taken with us as to the position in which they had found Olga we
returned to the house with long faces. An onlooker might have noticed
a certain laziness and apathy in our movements while we were examining
the scene of the crime. . . . Perhaps our movements were paralysed to
a certain extent by the conviction that the criminal was already in
our hands, and therefore it was unnecessary to enter on any Lecoq-like
analysis.
On his return from the forest Polugradov again passed a long time in
washing and dressing, and he again called for hot water. Having
finished his toilet he expressed a wish to examine Urbenin once more.
Poor Pëtr Egorych had nothing new to tell us at this examination; as
before he denied his guilt, and thought nothing of our evidence.
“I am astonished that I can be suspected,” he said, shrugging his
shoulders: “Strange!”
“My good fellow, don't play the _naïf_,” Polugradov said to him.
“Nobody is suspected without cause, and if somebody is suspected there
is good cause for it!”
“Whatever the causes may be, however strong the evidence may be, one
must reason in a humane manner! Don't you understand, I can't murder?
I can't . . . Consequently what is your evidence worth?”
“Well!” and the Assistant Prosecutor waved his hand: “what a trouble
these educated criminals are; one can make a muzhik understand, but
try to talk to one of these! ‘I can't’ . . . ‘in a humane
manner’ . . . there they go strumming on psychology!”
“I am no criminal,” Urbenin said quite offended, “I beg you to be more
careful in your expressions. . . .”
“Hold your tongue, my good fellow! We have no time to apologize nor to
listen to your dissatisfaction. . . . If you don't wish to confess,
you need not confess, but allow us to consider you a liar. . . .”
“As you like,” Urbenin grumbled. “You can do with me what you like
now. . . . You have the power. . . .”
Urbenin made a gesture of indifference, and continued to look out of
the window.
“Besides, it's all the same to me: my life is lost.”
“Listen to me, Pëtr Egorych,” I said, “yesterday and the day before
you were so overcome by grief, that you were scarcely able to keep on
your legs, and you were hardly able to give more than laconic answers;
to-day, on the contrary, you have such a blooming, of course, only
comparatively blooming, and gay appearance, and even strike out into
idle talk. Usually sorrowful people have no wish to talk, while you
not only launch out into long conversations, but even make all sorts
of trivial complaints. In what way can such a sudden change be
explained?”
“And how do you explain it?” Urbenin asked, screwing up his eyes at me
in a derisive manner.
“I explain it in this way: that you have forgotten your part. It is
difficult to act for any length of time; one either forgets one's
part, or it bores one. . . .”
“Consequently, that was all an invention,” said Urbenin, smiling; “and
it does honour to your perspicacity. . . . Yes, you are right; a great
change has taken place in me. . . .”
“Can you explain it to us?”
“Certainly, I see no cause for hiding it. Yesterday I was so entirely
broken and oppressed by my grief, that I thought of taking my life
. . . of going mad . . . but this night I thought better of it
. . . the thought entered my mind that death had saved Olia from a
life of depravity, that it had torn her out of the dirty hands of that
good-for-nothing who has ruined me; I am not jealous of death; it is
better for Olga to belong to death, than to the Count. This thought
cheered and strengthened me: now there is no longer the same weight on
my soul.”
“Cleverly invented,” Polugradov murmured under his breath, as he sat
swinging his leg, “he is never at a loss for an answer!”
“I feel that I am speaking the truth, and I can't understand that you
cultivated men cannot see the difference between truth and
dissimulation! However, prejudice is too strong a feeling; under its
influence it is difficult not to err; I can understand your position,
I can imagine what will be, when trusting in your evidence, I am
brought up for trial. . . . I can imagine how, taking into
consideration my brutal physiognomy, my drunkenness . . . My
physiognomy is not brutal, but prejudice will have its own. . . .”
“Very well, very well, enough,” Polugradov said, bending over his
papers, “Go! . . .”
After Urbenin had left, we proceeded to examine the Count. His
Excellency was pleased to come to the examination in his
dressing-gown, with a vinegar bandage on his head; having been
introduced to Polugradov he sank into an armchair, and began to give
his evidence:
“I shall tell you everything from the very beginning. . . . Well, and
how is your President Lionsky, getting on? Has he still not divorced
his wife? I made his acquaintance in Petersburg, quite by
chance. . . . Gentlemen, why don't you order something to be brought?
Somehow it's jollier to talk with a glass of cognac before you. . . .
I have not the slightest doubt that Urbenin committed this murder.”
And the Count told us all that the reader already knows. At the
request of the prosecutor he told us all the details of his life with
Olga, and described the delights of living with a beautiful woman, and
was so carried away by his subject, that he smacked his lips, and
winked several times. From his evidence I learned a very important
detail that is unknown to the reader. I learned that Urbenin while
living in the town had constantly bombarded the Count with letters; in
some letters he cursed him, in others he implored him to return his
wife to him, promising to forget all wrongs, and dishonour; the poor
devil caught at these letters like a drowning man catches at straws.
The Assistant Prosecutor examined two or three of the coachmen and
then, having had a very good dinner, he gave me a long list of
instructions, and drove away. Before leaving he went into the
adjoining house where Urbenin was confined, and told him that our
suspicions of his guilt had become certainties. Urbenin only shrugged
his shoulders, and asked permission to be present at his wife's
funeral; this permission was granted him.
Polugradov did not lie to Urbenin: yes, our suspicions had become
convictions, we were convinced that we knew who the criminal was, and
that he was already in our hands; but this conviction did not abide
with us for long! . . .