"Ah, that's unpleasant!"
"Precisely unpleasant; and you with your genuine tact have just found the suitable expression," Lebedev added, not without insidiousness.
"How is it, though . . ." the prince pondered, beginning to worry, "no, this is serious."
"Precisely serious—you've sought out yet another word, Prince, to signify ..."
"Oh, enough, Lukyan Timofeich, what was there to seek out? The words aren't important. . . Do you suppose that, in a drunken state, you might have dropped it out of your pocket?"
"I might have. Everything is possible in a drunken state, as you have so sincerely expressed it, my much-esteemed Prince! But I beg you to consider, sir: if I dropped the wallet out of my pocket while changing my frock coat, the dropped object should be lying there on the floor. Where is that object, sir?"
"You didn't stuff it into a desk drawer somewhere?"
"I've looked all over, rummaged everywhere, the more so as I never hid it anywhere or opened any drawer, which I remember distinctly."
"Did you look in the little cupboard?"
"First thing, sir, and even several times today . . . And how could I have put it into the little cupboard, my truly-esteemed Prince?"
"I confess, Lebedev, this worries me. So someone found it on the floor?"
"Or stole it from the pocket! Two alternatives, sir."
"This worries me very much, because who precisely . . . That's the question!"
"Without any doubt, that is the main question; you find words and thoughts and define the situation with astonishing precision, illustrious Prince."
"Ah, Lukyan Timofeich, stop your mockery, there's . . ."
"Mockery!" cried Lebedev, clasping his hands.
"Well, well, all right, I'm not angry, there's something else here . . . I'm afraid for people. Whom do you suspect?"
"A most difficult and . . . most complicated question! I cannot suspect my maid: she was sitting in her kitchen. Nor my own children ..."
"Hardly!"
"That means it was someone among the guests, sir."
"But is that possible?"
"It is totally and in the highest degree impossible, but it must certainly be so. I agree, however, to allow, and am even convinced, that if there was a theft, it was carried out not in the evening,
when we were all together, but at night or even towards morning, by someone who stayed overnight."
"Ah, my God!"
"Burdovsky and Nikolai Ardalionovich I naturally exclude; they never entered my quarters, sir."
"Hardly, and even if they had! Who spent the night with you?"
"Counting me, there were four who spent the night, in two adjacent rooms: me, the general, Keller, and Mr. Ferdyshchenko. Which means it's one of us four, sir!"
"Three, that is; but who?"
"I included myself for the sake of fairness and order; but you must agree, Prince, that I couldn't rob myself, though such things have happened in the world . . ."
"Ah, Lebedev, this is so tedious!" the prince cried impatiently. "To business, why drag it out! . . ."
"So three remain, sir, and first of all Mr. Keller, an unstable man, a drunk man, and on certain occasions a liberal, that is, with regard to the pocket, sir; in everything else his inclinations are, so to speak, more old chivalric than liberal. He slept here at first, in the sick boy's room, and it was only at night that he moved over to us, on the pretext that it was hard to sleep on the bare floor."
"Do you suspect him?"
"I did, sir. When I jumped up like a half-wit past seven in the morning and slapped myself on the forehead, I at once woke up the general, who was sleeping the sleep of the innocent. After considering the strange disappearance of Ferdyshchenko, which in itself aroused our suspicion, we both decided at once to search Keller, who was lying there like . . . like . . . almost like a doornail, sir. We searched him thoroughly: not a centime in his pockets, and not even a single pocket without holes in it. A blue, checked cotton handkerchief, sir, in indecent condition. Then a love note from some serving girl, with demands for money and threats, and the scraps of the feuilleton already familiar to you, sir. The general decided he was innocent. To obtain full information, we woke him up; we had a hard time jostling him; he was barely able to understand what it was all about; a gaping mouth, a drunken look, an absurd and innocent, even stupid, expression—it wasn't he, sir!"
"Well, I'm so glad!" the prince sighed joyfully. "I was so afraid for him!"
"Afraid? Does that mean you have reasons to be?" Lebedev narrowed his eyes.
"Oh, no, I just said it," the prince checked himself. "It was stupid of me to say I was afraid. Kindly don't tell anyone, Lebedev . . ."
"Prince, Prince! Your words are in my heart . . . deep in my heart! A grave, sir! . . ." Lebedev said rapturously, pressing his hat to his heart.
"All right, all right! ... So it's Ferdyshchenko? That is, I mean to say, you suspect Ferdyshchenko?"
"Who else?" Lebedev said quietly, looking intently at the prince.
"Well, yes, naturally . . . who else . . . that is, once again, what evidence is there?"
"There is evidence, sir. First of all, his disappearance at seven o'clock or even before seven o'clock in the morning."
"I know, Kolya told me he came and said he was going to spend the rest of the night at ... I forget whose place, some friend's."
"Vilkin, sir. So Nikolai Ardalionovich told you already?"
"He didn't say anything about the theft."
"He doesn't know, for I have so far kept the matter a secret. And so, he goes to Vilkin; you might think, what's so puzzling about a drunk man going to see another drunk man just like himself, even though it's the wee hours of the morning and without any reason at all, sir? But it's here that the trail begins: on his way out, he leaves the address . . . Now follow the question, Prince: why did he leave the address? . . . Why does he purposely go to Nikolai Ardalionovich, making a detour, sir, and tell him, 'I'm going to spend the rest of the night at Vilkin's'? And who is interested in his leaving and going precisely to Vilkin's? Why announce it? No, there's a subtlety here, a thievish subtlety! It means: 'Look here, I'm not concealing my tracks, what kind of thief am I after that? Would a thief announce where he's going?' An excessive concern about diverting suspicion and, so to speak, wiping away his tracks in the sand . . . Do you understand me, my much-esteemed Prince?"
"I understand, I understand very well, but is that enough?"
"A second piece of evidence, sir: the trail turned out to be false, and the address he gave was inexact. An hour later, that is, at eight o'clock, I was already knocking on Vilkin's door; he lives here, on Fifth Street, sir, I'm even acquainted with him. There wasn't any Ferdyshchenko there. Though I did get out of the maid—she's completely deaf, sir—that an hour earlier someone had actually knocked, and even rather hard, so that he broke the bell. But the maid didn't open the door, not wishing to waken Mr. Vilkin, and maybe not wanting to get out of bed herself. It happens, sir."
"And that is all your evidence? It's not much."
"But, Prince, who else should I suspect, just think?" Lebedev concluded sweetly, and something sly showed in his smile.