“To whom have I the honour of speaking?” the superintendent asked him.

“Psyekov, Klyauzov’s steward.  Agricultural and engineering expert.”

The police superintendent, on reaching the spot with Psyekov and the necessary witnesses, found the position as follows.

Masses of people were crowding about the lodge in which Klyauzov lived.  The news of the event had flown round the neighbourhood with the rapidity of lightning, and, thanks to its being a holiday, the people were flocking to the lodge from all the neighbouring villages.  There was a regular hubbub of talk.  Pale and tearful faces were to be seen here and there.  The door into Klyauzov’s bedroom was found to be locked.  The key was in the lock on the inside.

“Evidently the criminals made their way in by the window” Psyekov observed, as they examined the door.

They went into the garden 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.