“Let's look.”
And holding onto the roots, and breaking our finger-nails, we let ourselves down almost into the very mire, hardly able to hold onto the small slippery ledges of the steep slope. A hole did indeed turn out to be under the roots, but there was nothing in it.
I was about to climb up to the top, but Ryhor stopped me:
“Stupid we are. If there really was something here, then it is already under a layer of silt. He could have thrown something, but you know, two years have passed, the earth there in the hole will have crumbled and buried it.”
We began scratching the caked silt with our fingers, emptying it out of the hole, and — believe it or not, — soon my fingers hit on something hard. In the palm of my hand lay a cigarette-case made of maple wood. There was nothing else in the hole.
We climbed out and carefully wiped off from the cigarette-case the reddish silt mixed with clay. In the cigarette-case lay a piece of white cloth which Raman had evidently torn out from his shirt with his teeth. And on this little rag hardly decipherable reddish letters: “Varona mur...”
I shrugged my shoulders. The devil knows what this meant! Either evidence that Varona killed Raman, or a request to Varona to kill someone. Ryhor was looking at me.
“Well, so now it's clear, Mr. Andrej. Varona drove him here. Tomorrow we shall take him.”
“Why tomorrow? He may come today even.”
“Today is Friday. You, sir, have forgotten this. People say: ‘Look for the cut-throat in the church.’ Really too holy and godly. They kill with the name of the Holy Trinity on their lips. They will come tomorrow because they've lost all patience. They have got to get rid of you.” He became silent, a harsh flame blazed in his eyes. “Tomorrow, at last, I'll bring the mužyks. With pitchforks. And we'll give you one, too. If you're with us, then you're with us to the end. We'll lie in wait at the broken-down cross. And all of them we'll finish off, all of them. To the very roots, the devil's seed.”
We went together to Marsh Firs and there we learned that Miss Nadzieja was not alone. Mr. Haraburda was with her. Janoŭskaja had been avoiding me lately, and when we met she would turn her eyes away, eyes that had grown dark and were as sad as autumn water.
Therefore I asked the housekeeper to call her out into the lower hall where Ryhor was somberly looking at St. Yuri, himself as powerful and tall as the statue. Janoŭskaja came and Ryhor, ashamed of his footprints all over the floor, was hiding his feet behind an armchair. But his voice when he addressed her was as formerly, rough, though somewhere deep down within him, something trembled.
“Listen, clever Miss. We have found King Stach. It's Varona. Give me a pair of guns. Tomorrow we'll put an end to him.”
“And by the way,” I said, “I was mistaken when I asked you whether you knew a person whose surname began with ‘Likol’. Now I want to ask you whether you know a person whose nickname is Likol, simply Likol. He is the most dangerous man in the gang, perhaps its leader even.”
“No!” she screamed suddenly, her hands clutching at her breast. Her eyes widened, frozen with horror. “No! No!”
“Who is he?” Ryhor asked darkly.
“Be merciful! Have pity on me! That's impossible... He is so kind-hearted and tender. He used to hold Śvieciłovič and me on his knees. Our childish tongues at that time couldn't pronounce his name, we distorted it and that gave birth to the nickname by which we called him only among ourselves. Few people knew this.”
“Who is he?” adamantly repeated Ryhor moving stone jaws.
And then she began to weep. Cried, sobbed like a child. And through her sobbing finally escaped:
“Mr. Likol... Mr. Ryhor Dubatoŭk.”
I was horror-stricken to the very heart. Dumbfounded!
“Impossible! Such a good man! And, most important, of what benefit is it to him? After all, he's not an heir!”
And my memory obligingly reminded me of the words of one of the scoundrels under the tree: “He's in love with antiquity.” And even the undeciphered “...ly ma...” in the letter to Śvieciłovič suddenly turned naturally into Dubatoŭk's favourite byword: “Holy martyrs! What's going on here in this world!”
I wiped my eyes driving off my confusion.
Like lightning the solution flashed through my mind.
“Wait here, Nadzieja Ramanaŭna. And Ryhor, you wait, too. I'll go to Mr. Haraburda. Then I'll have to look through Bierman's things.”
Up the stairs I ran, my mind working in two directions. Firstly: Dubatoŭk might have arranged matters with Bierman (why had he killed him?) Secondly: Haraburda also might have been dependent on Dubatoŭk.
When I opened the door, an elderly gentleman with Homeric haunches, got out from his armchair to meet me. He looked at my determined face in surprise. “Excuse me, Mr. Haraburda,” I flung at him sharply, “I must put a question to you concerning your relations with Mr. Dubatoŭk: why did you permit this man to order you about?”
He had the look of a thief caught in the act of committing a crime. His low forehead reddened, his eyes began to wander. However, from the look on my face, he probably understood that I was in no mood for joking.
“What can one do... Promissory notes...” he muttered.
“You gave Mr. Dubatoŭk promissory notes secured by Janoŭskaja's estate, which does not belong to you?”
And again I struck home aiming at the sky.
“It was such a miserly sum. Only 3,000 roubles. The kennel requires so much.”
Things were beginning to fall into their places. Dubatoŭk's monstrous plan gradually became clear.
“According to Raman Janoŭski's will,” he mumbled, removing something from his morning-coat with trembling fingers, “such a substitution was established. Janoŭskaja's children receive the inheritance...” and he looked at me pitifully in the eyes. “There won't be any. She'll die, you know... She'll die soon. After her — her husband. But she is mad, who will marry her?.. Then the next step — the last of the Janoŭskis. But there aren't any, after Śvieciłovič's death — none. I am Janoŭskaja's relative in the female line. If there aren't any children or a husband — the castle is mine.” And he began to whimper: “But how could I wait? I've so many promissory notes. I'm such an unfortunate person. Mr. Ryhor has bought up most of my notes. And in addition gave 3,000 roubles. Now he'll be the owner here.”
“Listen to me,” speaking through set teeth, “there was, is, and will be only one owner here, Miss Nadzieja Janoŭskaja.”
“I laid no hope on receiving an inheritance. Janoŭskaja could get married. So I gave him a promissory note, its security being the castle.”
“So! You lack both shame and a conscience. You probably do not even know what they are. But don't you really know that from the financial aspect this act is not valid? That it's criminal?”
“No, I don't. I was glad.”
“But you know, don't you, that you drove Dubatoŭk into committing a terrible crime, a crime for which there is no word even in man's language? Of what is the poor girl guilty that you decided to deprive her of her life?”
“I suspected that it was a crime,” he babbled, “but my kennel, my house...”
“You lousy thing! I don't want to dirty my hands on you. The provincial court will busy itself with you. And in the meantime, on my own authority, I'll put you in the dungeon of this house for a week, so you won't be able to warn the other rascals.”
He began to whimper and whine:
“That's coercion.”
“It's for you, is it, to speak of coercion? You villain! It's for you, is it, to appeal to the law?” I flung at him. “What do you know about that? You who lick people's boots!”
I called Ryhor, and he pushed Haraburda into the dungeon, under the central part of the building where there weren't any windows.
An iron door thundered behind him.
The small light of a candle loomed somewhere in the distance behind dark window-panes. When I lifted my eyes, I saw close by the reflection of my face in sharp shadows.
I was looking through Bierman's papers. It still seemed to me that I might find something of interest in them. Bierman was too complicated a character to have lived the life of a foolish sheep.