The police commissioner came in from the yard and said:
"There is nothing out there. We searched everywhere!"
"Well, of course!" exclaimed the officer, laughing. "I knew it! There's an experienced man here, it goes without saying."
The mother listened to his thin, dry voice, and looking with terror into the yellow face, felt an enemy in this man, an enemy without pity, with a heart full of aristocratic disdain of the people. Formerly she had but rarely seen such persons, and now she had almost forgotten they existed.
"Then this is the man whom Pavel and his friends have provoked," she thought.
"I place you, Mr. Andrey Onisimov Nakhodka, under arrest."
"What for?" asked the Little Russian composedly.
"I will tell you later!" answered the officer with spiteful civility, and turning to Vlasova, he shouted:
"Say, can you read or write?"
"No!" answered Pavel.