directions about details of management, you and Nicholas, at a given signal, seized your drunken master and threw him on the bed.  One of you sat on his legs, the other on his head.  Then a third person came in from the passage—­a woman in a black dress, whom you know well, and who had previously arranged with you as to her share in your criminal deed.  She seized a pillow and began to smother him.  While the struggle was going on the candle went out.  The woman took a box of safety matches from her pocket, and lit the candle.  Was it not so?  I see by your face that I am speaking the truth.  But to go on.  After you had smothered him, and saw that he had ceased breathing, you and Nicholas pulled him out through the window and laid him down near the burdock.  Fearing that he might come round again, you struck him with something sharp.  Then you carried him away, and laid him down under a lilac bush for a short time.  After resting awhile and considering, you carried him across the fence.  Then you entered the road.  After that comes the dam.  Near the dam, a peasant frightened you.  Well, what is the matter with you?”

“I am suffocating!” replied Psyekoff.  “Very well—­have it so.  Only let me go out, please!”

They led Psyekoff away.

“At last!  He has confessed!” cried Chubikoff, stretching himself luxuriously.  “He has betrayed himself!  And didn’t I get round him cleverly!  Regularly caught him napping——­”

“And he doesn’t deny the woman in the black dress!” exulted Dukovski.  “But all the same, that safety match is tormenting me frightfully.  I can’t stand it any longer.  Good-by!  I am off!”

Dukovski put on his cap and drove off.  Chubikoff began to examine Aquilina.  Aquilina declared that she knew nothing whatever about it.

At six that evening Dukovski returned.  He was more agitated than he had ever been before.  His hands trembled so that he could not even unbutton his greatcoat.  His cheeks glowed.  It was clear that he did not come empty handed.

“Veni, vidi, vici!” he cried, rushing into Chubikoff’s room, and falling into an armchair.  “I swear to you on my honor, I begin to believe that I am a genius!  Listen, devil take us all!  It is funny, and it is sad.  We have caught three already—­isn’t that so?  Well, I have found the fourth, and a woman at that.  You will never believe who it is!  But listen.  I went to Klausoff’s village, and began to make a spiral round it.  I visited all the little shops, public houses, dram shops on the road, everywhere asking for safety matches.  Everywhere they said they hadn’t any.  I made a wide round.  Twenty times I lost faith, and twenty times I got it back again.  I knocked about the whole day, and only an hour ago I got on the track.  Three versts from here.  They gave me a packet of ten boxes.  One box was missing.  Immediately:  ‘Who bought the other box?’ ‘Such-a-one!  She was pleased with them!’ Old man!  Nicholas Yermolaiyevitch!  See what a fellow who was expelled from the seminary and who has read Gaboriau can do!  From to-day on I begin to respect myself!  Oof!  Well, come!”