第197章

The Preliminary InvestigationChapter 1The Beginning of Perhotin's Official CareerPYOTR ILYITCH PERHOTIN, whom we left knocking at the strong locked gates of the widow Morozov's house, ended, of course, by making himself heard.Fenya, who was still excited by the fright she had had two hours before, and too much "upset" to go to bed, was almost frightened into hysterics on hearing the furious knocking at the gate.

Though she had herself seen him drive away, she fancied that it must be Dmitri Fyodorovitch knocking again, no one else could knock so savagely.She ran to the house-porter, who had already waked up and gone out to the gate, and began imploring him not to open it.But having questioned Pyotr Ilyitch, and learned that he wanted to see Fenya on very "important business," the man made up his mind at last to open.Pyotr Ilyitch was admitted into Fenya's kitchen, but the girl begged him to allow the houseporter to be present, "because of her misgivings." He began questioning her and at once learnt the most vital fact, that is, that when Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run out to look for Grushenka, he had snatched up a pestle from the mortar, and that when he returned, the pestle was not with him and his hands were smeared with blood.

"And the blood was simply flowing, dripping from him, dripping!"Fenya kept exclaiming.This horrible detail was simply the product of her disordered imagination.But although not "dripping," Pyotr Ilyitch had himself seen those hands stained with blood, and had helped to wash them.Moreover, the question he had to decide was, not how soon the blood had dried, but where Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run with the pestle, or rather, whether it really was to Fyodor Pavlovitch's, and how he could satisfactorily ascertain.Pyotr Ilyitch persisted in returning to this point, and though he found out nothing conclusive, yet he carried away a conviction that Dmitri Fyodorovitch could have gone nowhere but to his father's house, and that, therefore, something must have happened there.

"And when he came back," Fenya added with excitement."I told him the whole story, and then I began asking him, 'Why have you got blood on your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?' and he answered that that was human blood, and that he had just killed someone.He confessed it all to me, and suddenly ran off like a madman.I sat down and began thinking, where's he run off to now like a madman? He'll go to Mokroe, I thought, and kill my mistress there.I ran out to beg him not to kill her.I was running to his lodgings, but I looked at Plotnikov's shop, and saw him just setting off, and there was no blood on his hands then." (Fenya had noticed this and remembered it.) Fenya's old grandmother confirmed her evidence as far as she was capable.After asking some further questions, Pyotr Ilyitch left the house, even more upset and uneasy than he had been when he entered it.

The most direct and the easiest thing for him to do would have been to go straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch's, to find out whether anything had happened there, and if so, what; and only to go to the police captain, as Pyotr Ilyitch firmly intended doing, when he had satisfied himself of the fact.But the night was dark, Fyodor Pavlovitch's gates were strong, and he would have to knock again.

His acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovitch was of the slightest, and what if, after he had been knocking, they opened to him, and nothing had happened? Fyodor Pavlovitch in his jeering way would go telling the story all over the town, how a stranger, called Perhotin, had broken in upon him at midnight to ask if anyone had killed him.It would make a scandal.And scandal was what Pyotr Ilyitch dreaded more than anything in the world.

Yet the feeling that possessed him was so strong, that though he stamped his foot angrily and swore at himself, he set off again, not to Fyodor Pavlovitch's but to Madame Hohlakov's.He decided that if she denied having just given Dmitri Fyodorovitch three thousand roubles, he would go straight to the police captain, but if she admitted having given him the money, he would go home and let the matter rest till next morning.

It is, of course, perfectly evident that there was even more likelihood of causing scandal by going at eleven o'clock at night to a fashionable lady, a complete stranger, and perhaps rousing her from her bed to ask her an amazing question, than by going to Fyodor Pavlovitch.But that is just how it is, sometimes, especially in cases like the present one, with the decisions of the most precise and phlegmatic people.Pyotr Ilyitch was by no means phlegmatic at that moment.He remembered all his life how a haunting uneasiness gradually gained possession of him, growing more and more painful and driving him on, against his will.Yet he kept cursing himself, of course, all the way for going to this lady, but "I will get to the bottom of it, I will!" he repeated for the tenth time, grinding his teeth, and he carried out his intention.

It was exactly eleven o'clock when he entered Madame Hohlakov's house.He was admitted into the yard pretty quickly, but, in response to his inquiry whether the lady was still up, the porter could give no answer, except that she was usually in bed by that time.

"Ask at the top of the stairs.If the lady wants to receive you, she'll receive you.If she won't, she won't."Pyotr Ilyitch went up, but did not find things so easy here.The footman was unwilling to take in his name, but finally called a maid.Pyotr Ilyitch politely but insistently begged her to inform her lady that an official, living in the town, called Perhotin, had called on particular business, and that if it were not of the greatest importance he would not have ventured to come."Tell her in those words, in those words exactly," he asked the girl.