“But tell me one thing,” I demanded anxiously. “Is Paul Cherniávski your protector?”
She held her breath, and as she looked at me I saw tears welling in her bright eyes.
“Yes,” she faltered. “He—he is my only friend.”
The silence that ensued was long and painful. The truth, as far as it went, was out, and I felt angry with myself.
That night, having halted at the lonely post-house of Artinsk, we sat in the uncleanly common-room, and Mariána, as usual, served tea to Ivan and myself from the samovar. As she handed the driver his cup I noticed that his hand trembled and he looked at her with a strange, almost demoniacal expression of hatred. In a moment, however, it had passed; yet throughout the evening, while Mariána and I smoked our cigarettes and chatted to the old post-house keeper and his wife, the sole occupants, I pondered over it, and at night little sleep came to my eyes.
Was there some secret between them, or had he understood Mariána’s confession?
Rising early, I went out into the clear, crisp air to smoke and think. It was a lonely place, sixty miles to the nearest village. When I returned I found the post-house keeper speechless with terror, and at once apprehended that some strange event had occurred. Judge my amazement and horror, however, when he half dragged me to a room where I saw Ivan, the driver, lying upon his truckle bed fully dressed. He had been stabbed to the heart!
Mariána, who came from her room a moment later, was horrified, though she declared that she was too much upset to enter to view the murdered man’s corpse. Pale, nervous, and haggard, she whispered in French a wish to get away as quickly as possible, and so agitated did she become when I announced my intention of going on to Irkutsk, four hundred versts distant, to inform the police, that suspicions were at once aroused in my mind.
I noticed, too, a deep scratch across her delicate wrist. How did she get it? Her actions were strange, and she was so anxious to get away from the scene of the crime that I at last became convinced of her guilt.