“Oh, do shut up!” cried the magistrate deprecatingly.  “You go on about your match!  I can’t abide these dreamers!  Instead of chasing matches, you had better examine the bed!”

After a thorough examination of the bed, Dukovski reported: 

“There are no spots, either of blood or of anything else.  There are likewise no new torn places.  On the pillow there are signs of teeth.  The quilt is stained with something which looks like beer and smells like beer.  The general aspect of the bed gives grounds for thinking that a struggle took place on it.”

“I know there was a struggle, without your telling me!  You are not being asked about a struggle.  Instead of looking for struggles, you had better——­”

“Here is one top boot, but there is no sign of the other.”

“Well, and what of that?”

“It proves that they strangled him, while he was taking his boots off.  He hadn’t time to take the second boot off when——­”

“There you go!—­and how do you know they strangled him?”

“There are marks of teeth on the pillow.  The pillow itself is badly crumpled, and thrown a couple of yards from the bed.”

“Listen to his foolishness!  Better come into the garden.  You would be better employed examining the garden than digging around here.  I can do that without you!”

When they reached the garden they began by examining the grass.  The grass under the window was crushed and trampled.  A bushy burdock growing under the window close to the wall was also trampled.  Dukovski succeeded in finding on it some broken twigs and a piece of cotton wool.  On the upper branches were found some fine hairs of dark blue wool.

“What color was his last suit?” Dukovski asked Psyekoff.

“Yellow crash.”

“Excellent!  You see they wore blue!”

A few twigs of the burdock were cut off, and carefully wrapped in paper by the investigators.  At this point Police Captain Artsuybasheff Svistakovski and Dr. Tyutyeff arrived.  The captain bade them “Good day!” and immediately began to satisfy his curiosity.  The doctor, a tall, very lean man, with dull eyes, a long nose, and a pointed chin, without greeting anyone or asking about anything, sat down on a log, sighed, and began: 

“The Servians are at war again!  What in heaven’s name can they want now?  Austria, it’s all your doing!”

The examination of the window from the outside did not supply any conclusive data.  The examination of the grass and the bushes nearest to the window yielded a series of useful clews.  For example, Dukovski succeeded in discovering a long, dark streak, made up of spots, on the grass, which led some distance into the center of the garden.  The streak ended under one of the lilac bushes in a dark brown stain.  Under this same lilac bush was found a top boot, which turned out to be the fellow of the boot already found in the bedroom.

“That is a blood stain made some time ago,” said Dukovski, examining the spot.