10

THE indictment ran as follows:

‘On the seventeenth day of January 188– at the Hotel Mavritania the sudden death occurred of a merchant of the Second Guild from Kurgan, one Ferapont Emilianovich Smelkov.

‘The local police doctor of the fourth district certified that death was due to rupture of the heart caused by excessive use of alcoholic liquor. The body of the said Smelkov was interred.

‘A few days later a fellow countryman and friend of Smelkov, the merchant Timokhin, returning from Petersburg and learning of Smelkov’s death and the attendant circumstances, expressed his suspicion that Smelkov had been poisoned with the object of stealing the money which he had on him.

‘This suspicion was confirmed at a preliminary investigation, which established:

‘1. That not long before his death Smelkov had received three thousand eight hundred roubles in silver from the bank. Whereas an inventory, made as a precautionary measure, of the deceased’s effects showed an amount of only three hundred and twelve roubles, sixteen kopecks.

‘2. The whole day and night preceding his death Smelkov had spent with the prostitute Lyubov (Katerina Maslova) in the brothel and at the Hotel Mavritania, where at Smelkov’s behest and in his absence Katerina Maslova had gone to collect money, which she got from Smelkov’s portmanteau, unlocking it (with the key Smelkov had given her) in the presence of the chambermaid of the Hotel Mavritania, Euphemia Botchkova, and the cleaner, Simon Kartinkin. When Maslova unlocked Smelkov’s portmanteau Botehkova and Kartinkin, who were present, saw some bundles of hundred-rouble bank-notes.

‘3. When Smelkov returned from the brothel to the Hotel Mavritania, accompanied by the prostitute Maslova, the latter, on the advice of the cleaner Kartinkin, put a white powder, which she received from Kartinkin, into Smelkov’s brandy-glass.

‘4. The following morning the prostitute Lyubov (Katerina Maslova) sold to her mistress, the proprietor of the brothel, the witness Kitayeva, a diamond ring of Smelkov’s, which Smelkov had allegedly given her as a present.

‘5. On the day following Smelkov’s demise the chambermaid of the Hotel Mavritania, Euphemia Botehkova, had deposited in her current account at the local commercial bank the sum of one thousand eight hundred roubles in silver.

‘A post-mortem examination of Smelkov’s internal organs which had revealed the undoubted presence of poison in the organism of the deceased gave grounds for concluding that death was caused by poisoning.

‘Maslova, Botchkova and Kartinkin, brought to court and accused of the crime, pleaded not guilty and declared: Maslova – that she really had been sent by Smelkov from the brothel where she “works” (as she expressed it) to the Hotel Mavritania to fetch some money for the merchant, and that, having unlocked the portmanteau with the key given her by the merchant, she had taken out forty silver roubles, as she had been told to, but that she had not taken any more money, to which Botchkova and Kartinkin could be her witnesses, for she had opened and closed the portmanteau and taken out the money in their presence. She further testified that on her second visit to the merchant Smelkov’s room she did, at the instigation of Simon Kartinkin, put into the brandy some kind of powder which she thought was a soporific, in the hope that the merchant would fall asleep and let her go quicker. The ring Smelkov himself had given her as a present after he had beaten her and she had cried and wanted to leave him.

‘Euphemia Botchkova testified that she knew nothing about the missing money, and had not even gone into the merchant’s room, but that Lyubov had been busy there all by herself, and if anything had been stolen from the merchant, then it must have been stolen by Lyubov when she came with the merchant’s key to get his money.’

At this point Maslova gave a start and gazed at Botchkova open-mouthed.

‘When Euphemia Botchkova was confronted with the receipt for the eighteen hundred roubles at the bank’ – the secretary continued reading – ‘and was asked how she had come by such a sum, she said that it was what she and Simon Kartinkin had saved over twelve years, and she was going to marry him.

‘At his first examination Simon Kartinkin confessed that he and Botchkova together had stolen the money, at the instigation of Maslova who had come from the brothel with the key, and had shared it out between the three of them.’ Here Maslova gave another start and even jumped up from her seat, flushed purple and began saying something, but the usher stopped her. ‘Finally,’ the secretary went on, ‘Kartinkin confessed, too, that he had supplied Maslova with the powder to send the merchant to sleep; but when he was examined the second time he denied having had anything to do either with the stealing of the money or giving Maslova the powder, and accused her of having done everything all by herself. Concerning the money which Botchkova had deposited at the bank, he said the same as she did, that it was money they had earned in tips during twelve years’ service at the hotel.’

Then followed an account of the confrontation of the accused, the depositions of the witnesses, the opinion of the experts and so on.

The indictment concluded as follows:

‘In consequence of the aforesaid, the peasant of the village Borki, Simon Petrov Kartinkin, thirty-three years of age; the citizens Euphemia Ivanovna Botchkova, forty-three years of age, and Katerina Mikhailovna Maslova, twenty-seven years of age, are charged with having on the 17th day of January 188– jointly conspired and stolen from the merchant Smelkov money to the value of two thousand five hundred roubles in silver, and a finger-ring, and of having administered poison to the said Smelkov with intent to deprive him of life, and thereby in fact causing Smelkov’s death.

‘This crime is specified in paragraphs 4 and 5 of Article 1453 of the Penal Code. Therefore, in pursuance of Article 202 of the Statutes of Criminal Procedure, the peasant Simon Kartinkin and the women Euphemia Botchkova and Katerina Maslova stand committed for trial by jury at the District Court.’

Thus the secretary ended his reading of the lengthy act of indictment and, having collected up his documents, he resumed his seat, smoothing his long hair with both hands. Everybody drew a sigh of relief in the pleasant knowledge that now the trial had begun, and everything would be made clear and justice be satisfied. Nekhlyudov was the only one not to experience this feeling: he was overwhelmed with horror at the thought of what Maslova, the innocent and charming girl he had known ten years ago, might have done.