第201章

"Lord, preserve us from harm!" Marfa Ignatyevna murmured, and ran towards the voice, and that was how she found Grigory.But she found him not by the fence where he had been knocked down, but about twenty paces off.It appeared later, that he had crawled away on coming to himself, and probably had been a long time getting so far, losing consciousness several times.She noticed at once that he was covered with blood, and screamed at the top of her voice.Grigory was muttering incoherently:

"He has murdered...his father murdered....Why scream, silly...

run...fetch someone..."

But Marfa continued screaming, and seeing that her master's window was open and that there was a candle alight in the window, she ran there and began calling Fyodor Pavlovitch.But peeping in at the window, she saw a fearful sight.Her master was lying on his back, motionless, on the floor.His light-coloured dressing-gown and white shirt were soaked with blood.The candle on the table brightly lighted up the blood and the motionless dead face of Fyodor Pavlovitch.

Terror-stricken, Marfa rushed away from the window, ran out of the garden, drew the bolt of the big gate and ran headlong by the back way to the neighbour, Marya Konndratyevna.Both mother and daughter were asleep, but they waked up at Marfa's desperate and persistent screaming and knocking at the shutter.Marfa, shrieking and screaming incoherently, managed to tell them the main fact, and to beg for assistance.It happened that Foma had come back from his wanderings and was staying the night with them.They got him up immediately and all three ran to the scene of the crime.On the way, Marya Kondratyevna remembered that at about eight o'clock she heard a dreadful scream from their garden, and this was no doubt Grigory's scream, "Parricide!" uttered when he caught hold of Mitya's leg.

"Some one person screamed out and then was silent," Marya Kondratyevna explained as she ran.Running to the place where Grigory lay, the two women with the help of Foma carried him to the lodge.They lighted a candle and saw that Smerdyakov was no better, that he was writhing in convulsions, his eyes fixed in a squint, and that foam was flowing from his lips.They moistened Grigory's forehead with water mixed with vinager, and the water revived him at once.He asked immediately:

"Is the master murdered?"

Then Foma and both the women ran to the house and saw this time that not only the window, but also the door into the garden was wide open, though Fyodor Pavlovitch had for the last week locked himself in every night and did not allow even Grigory to come in on any pretext.Seeing that door open, they were afraid to go in to Fyodor Pavlovitch "for fear anything should happen afterwards." And when they returned to Grigory, the old man told them to go straight to the police captain.Marya Kondratyevna ran there and gave the alarm to the whole party at the police captain's.She arrived only five minutes before Pyotr Ilyitch, so that his story came, not as his own surmise and theory, but as the direct conformation by a witness, of the theory held by all, as to the identity of the criminal (a theory he had in the bottom of his heart refused to believe till that moment).

It was resolved to act with energy.The deputy police inspector of the town was commissioned to take four witnesses, to enter Fyodor Pavlovitch's house and there to open an inquiry on the spot, according to the regular forms, which I will not go into here.The district doctor, a zealous man, new to his work, almost insisted on accompanying the police captain, the prosecutor, and the investigating lawyer.

I will note briefly that Fyodor Pavlovitch was found to be quite dead, with his skull battered in.But with what? Most likely with the same weapon with which Grigory had been attacked.And immediately that weapon was found, Grigory, to whom all possible medical assistance was at once given, described in a weak and breaking voice how he had been knocked down.They began looking with a lantern by the fence and found the brass pestle dropped in a most conspicuous place on the garden path.There were no signs of disturbance in the room where Fyodor Pavlovitch was lying.But by the bed, behind the screen, they picked up from the floor a big and thick envelope with the inscription: "A present of three thousand roubles for my angel Grushenka, if she is willing to come." And below had been added by Fyodor Pavlovitch, "For my little chicken."There were three seals of red sealing-wax on the envelope, but it had been torn open and was empty: the money had been removed.They found also on the floor a piece of narrow pink ribbon, with which the envelope had been tied up.

One piece of Pyotr Ilyitch's evidence made a great impression on the prosecutor and the investigating magistrate, namely, his idea that Dmitri Fyodorovitch would shoot himself before daybreak, that he had resolved to do so, had spoken of it to Ilyitch, had taken the pistols, loaded them before him, written a letter, put it in his pocket, etc.

When Pyotr Ilyitch, though still unwilling to believe in it, threatened to tell someone so as to prevent the suicide, Mitya had answered grinning: "You'll be too late." So they must make haste to Mokroe to find the criminal, before he really did shoot himself.

"That's clear, that's clear!" repeated the prosecutor in great excitement."That's just the way with mad fellows like that: 'Ishall kill myself to-morrow, so I'll make merry till I die!'"The story of how he had bought the wine and provisions excited the prosecutor more than ever.