“What will she hear? Who’s been murdered? What were you saying about Mavriky Nikolaevitch?” said Liza, suddenly opening the door.
“Ah! You’ve been listening?”
“What were you saying just now about Mavriky Nikolaevitch? Has he been murdered?”
“Ah! Then you didn’t hear? Don’t distress yourself, Mavriky Nikolaevitch is alive and well, and you can satisfy yourself of it in an instant, for he is here by the wayside, by the garden fence … and I believe he’s been sitting there all night. He is drenched through in his greatcoat! He saw me as I drove past.”
“That’s not true. You said ‘murdered.’ … Who’s been murdered?” she insisted with agonising mistrust.
“The only people who have been murdered are my wife, her brother Lebyadkin, and their servant,” Stavrogin brought out firmly.
Liza trembled and turned terribly pale.
“A strange brutal outrage, Lizaveta Nikolaevna. A simple case of robbery,” Pyotr Stepanovitch rattled off at once “Simply robbery, under cover of the fire. The crime was committed by Fedka the convict, and it was all that fool Lebyadkin’s fault for showing every one his money.… I rushed here with the news … it fell on me like a thunderbolt. Stavrogin could hardly stand when I told him. We were deliberating here whether to tell you at once or not?”
“Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, is he telling the truth?” Liza articulated faintly.
“No; it’s false.”