Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/283

Rh "Where didst thou sleep last night?" he cried, "and wert thou alone or with another merchant? Didst thou see this merchant again next morning? Why didst thou take the road again so early>"

Aksenov began to be surprised at all this questioning. He told everything just as it had happened, and said, "Why do you ask me so many questions? I am not a thief or a highwayman, or anything of that sort. I am going about my own business. Why should you ask me such questions?"

Then the chinovnik called the soldiers, and said, "I am a magistrate, and I ask you these questions because the merchant with whom you passed the night has been murdered. Show your things!—and you search him!"

They went into the inn, took his trunk and bag and undid them, and searched. All at once the magistrate drew a knife out of the bag, and shrieked, "Is this your knife?"

Aksenov looked, and saw that they had drawn a knife covered with blood out of his bag, and he was afraid.

"How comes the blood on this knife?"

Aksenov would have answered, but he couldn't utter a word. "I—I—don't know. I—I—the knife—the knife isn't mine."

Then the magistrate said: "This morning we found the merchant murdered in his bed. Nobody but yourself could have done it. The hut was locked inside, and there was nobody in the hut but you. Here's the knife covered with blood in your bag. Why, the whole thing's plain on the face of it. Speak! how did 233