found out what I could about the murder, and went home feeling as suspicious as ever. And at eight o’clock this morning’ — that was the third day, you understand — ’I saw Nikolay coming in, not sober, though not to say very drunk — he could understand what was said to him. He sat down on the bench and did not speak. There was only one stranger in the bar and a man I knew asleep on a bench and our two boys. “Have you seen Dmitri?” said I. “No, I haven’t,” said he. “And you’ve not been here either?” “Not since the day before yesterday,” said he. “And where did you sleep last night?” “In Peski, with the Kolomensky men.” “And where did you get those ear-rings?” I asked. “I found them in the street,” and the way he said