[1]: (At the risk of shocking the reader, it has been decided that the real permanent detective stories of the world were ill represented without Dostoyevsky's terrible tale of what might be called "self-detection." If to sensitive readers the story seems so real as to be hideous, it is well to recall that Dostoyevsky in 1849 under-went the agony of sentence to death as a revolutionist. Although the sentence was commuted to hard labor in Siberia, and although six years later he was freed and again took up his writing, his mind never rose from beneath the weight of horror and hopelessness that hangs over offenders against the Great White Czar. Dostoyevsky, sentenced as a criminal, herded with criminals, really became a criminal in literary imagination. Add to this a minute observation, a marvelous memory, ardent political convictions—and we can understand why the story here, with others of his, is taken as a scientific text by criminologists.—EDITOR.)
[2]: 1,000 yards.
[3]: Janitors.
[4]: little father
[5]: Cabbage soup.
ANTON CHEKHOFF
THE SAFETY MATCH
On the morning of October 6, 1885, in the office of the Inspector of Police of the second division of S—— District, there appeared a respectably dressed young man, who announced that his master, Marcus Ivanovitch Klausoff, a retired officer of the Horse Guards, separated from his wife, had been murdered. While making this announcement the young man was white and terribly agitated. His hands trembled and his eyes were full of terror.
"Whom have I the honor of addressing?" asked the inspector.
"Psyekoff, Lieutenant Klausoff's agent; agriculturist and mechanician!"