“It is quite clear that the scoundrels got in by the window!” said Psyekoff as they examined the door.

They went to the garden, into which the bedroom window opened.  The window looked dark and ominous.  It was covered by a faded green curtain.  One corner of the curtain was slightly turned up, which made it possible to look into the bedroom.

“Did any of you look into the window?” asked the inspector.

“Certainly not, your worship!” answered Ephraim, the gardener, a little gray-haired old man, who looked like a retired sergeant.  “Who’s going to look in, if all their bones are shaking?”

“Ah, Marcus Ivanovitch, Marcus Ivanovitch!” sighed the inspector, looking at the window, “I told you you would come to a bad end!  I told the dear man, but he wouldn’t listen!  Dissipation doesn’t bring any good!”

“Thanks to Ephraim,” said Psyekoff; “but for him, we would never have guessed.  He was the first to guess that something was wrong.  He comes to me this morning, and says:  ’Why is the master so long getting up?  He hasn’t left his bedroom for a whole week!’ The moment he said that, it was just as if some one had hit me with an ax.  The thought flashed through my mind, ’We haven’t had a sight of him since last Saturday, and to-day is Sunday’!  Seven whole days—­not a doubt of it!”

“Ay, poor fellow!” again sighed the inspector.  “He was a clever fellow, finely educated, and kind-hearted at that!  And in society, nobody could touch him!  But he was a waster, God rest his soul!  I was prepared for anything since he refused to live with Olga Petrovna.  Poor thing, a good wife, but a sharp tongue!  Stephen!” the inspector called to one of his deputies, “go over to my house this minute, and send Andrew to the captain to lodge an information with him!  Tell him that Marcus Ivanovitch has been murdered.  And run over to the orderly; why should he sit there, kicking his heels?  Let him come here!  And go as fast as you can to the examining magistrate, Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch.  Tell him to come over here!  Wait; I’ll write him a note!”

The inspector posted sentinels around the wing, wrote a letter to the examining magistrate, and then went over to the director’s for a glass of tea.  Ten minutes later he was sitting on a stool, carefully nibbling a lump of sugar, and swallowing the scalding tea.

“There you are!” he was saying to Psyekoff; “there you are!  A noble by birth! a rich man—­a favorite of the gods, you may say, as Pushkin has it, and what did he come to?  He drank and dissipated and—­there you are—­he’s murdered.”

After a couple of hours the examining magistrate drove up.  Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch Chubikoff—­for that was the magistrate’s name—­was a tall, fleshy old man of sixty, who had been wrestling with the duties of his office for a quarter of a century.  Everybody in the district knew him as an honest man, wise, energetic, and in love with his work.  He was accompanied to the scene of the murder by his inveterate companion, fellow worker, and secretary, Dukovski, a tall young fellow of twenty-six.