Maria was startled and horrified. She would have thrown her arms about her wretched husband’s neck, but cruel bars kept them asunder. Ivanoff iterated and reiterated again and again that he was innocent. He swore it by all that a Russian holds most sacred, and he begged with streaming eyes that his wife would use every means possible to prove his innocence and secure his release, otherwise he would in a very short time be raving mad.
When Maria Ivanoff left that awful place and got into the light again, she felt like one who had come up out of a tomb, where she had looked upon death. She knew that there was but little hope for her husband unless his innocence was made clear as day. She thoroughly believed his assertions; and she made a mental resolve that she would rest neither night nor day until she had exhausted every possible means to release him. Her friends were angry with her; everybody said it was an impossible task to prove a guilty man innocent. Her distress of mind may be imagined, not described; she told her friends she herself would go mad if somebody did not come to her assistance. Then it was that her brother, with what he intended to be the most pointed irony, said:
‘You are seeking to do that which is impossible. Now, if there is a man in all Russia who can perform seemingly impossible deeds, that man is Michael Danevitch, the Government detective. Why don’t you go to him? He might perform a miracle, who knows?’
Maria Ivanoff jumped at the suggestion, though it was never intended she should take it seriously. But she sought out Danevitch. She laid all the facts of the case before him. It was the first he had heard of the matter. It was the first time he had ever set his eyes on Maria. But her moving tale stirred him; her beauty won him; her tears found their way to his heart. He consoled her in a measure by a pledge that he would examine the case from every possible point of view, and communicate with her later on. Nearly a fortnight passed before she saw him again.
‘There is one point, and a very curious point it is,’ he said, ‘that makes the evidence against the accused weak, and yet nobody seems to have noticed it.’
‘What is it?’ cried Maria, breathless with new hope.
‘On the day that Riskoff was murdered, he drew from the bank three thousand roubles. Your husband had one thousand of this sum, according to his own statement, and the most critical investigation has failed to prove this statement false; not a rouble over and above the one thousand has been traced to his possession.’
‘Yes, yes; go on,’ moaned Maria, as she clasped her hands together with the emotion the detective’s words begot. ‘What has become of the other two thousand?’
‘Ah, that is what I want to know. If your husband murdered Riskoff for the sake of the money, why did he only take one thousand roubles and leave two thousand? And if he left two thousand behind, what has become of them?’
Maria was holding her breath with that intensity of nervous emotion which one experiences when it seems as if some revelation is about to be made which means life or death to the listener. Danevitch remained thoughtful and silent. His eyes were fixed on vacancy; his lips were closely compressed; he looked absorbed and dreamy, as was his wont when he was unusually thoughtful. At last Maria could endure her pent-up feelings no longer, and in a husky voice she asked: