The prosecutor swallowed this without a murmur. He was trembling with impatience to hear the new fact. Minutely and diffusely Mitya told them everything about the signals invented by Fyodor Pavlovitch for Smerdyakov. He told them exactly what every tap on the window meant, tapped the signals on the table, and when Nikolay Parfenovitch said that he supposed he, Mitya, had tapped the signal “Grushenka has come,” when he tapped to his father, he answered precisely that he had tapped that signal, that “Grushenka had come.”
“So now you can build up your tower,” Mitya broke off, and again turned away from them contemptuously.
“So no one knew of the signals but your dead father, you, and the valet Smerdyakov? And no one else?” Nikolay Parfenovitch inquired once more.
“Yes. The valet Smerdyakov, and Heaven. Write down about Heaven. That may be of use. Besides, you will need God yourselves.”
And they had already, of course, begun writing it down. But while they wrote, the prosecutor said suddenly, as though pitching on a new idea:
“But if Smerdyakov also knew of these signals and you absolutely deny all responsibility for the death of your father, was it not he, perhaps, who knocked the signal agreed upon, induced your father to open to him, and then ... committed the crime?”
Mitya turned upon him a look of profound irony and intense hatred. His silent stare lasted so long that it made the prosecutor blink.
“You’ve caught the fox again,” commented Mitya at last; “you’ve got the beast by the tail. Ha ha! I see through you, Mr. Prosecutor. You thought, of course, that I should jump at that, catch at your prompting, and shout with all my might, ‘Aie! it’s Smerdyakov; he’s the murderer.’ Confess that’s what you thought. Confess, and I’ll go on.”
But the prosecutor did not confess. He held his tongue and waited.
“You’re mistaken. I’m not going to shout ‘It’s Smerdyakov,’ ” said Mitya.