第260页 / 共1294页

"That's just it; the murderer must have been there and bolted

himself in; and they'd have caught him for a certainty if Koch

had not been an ass and gone to look for the porter too. He must

have seized the interval to get downstairs and slip by them

somehow. Koch keeps crossing himself and saying: 'If I had been

there, he would have jumped out and killed me with his axe.' He

is going to have a thanksgiving service--ha, ha!"

"And no one saw the murderer?"

"They might well not see him; the house is a regular Noah's Ark,"

said the head clerk, who was listening.

"It's clear, quite clear," Nikodim Fomitch repeated warmly.

"No, it is anything but clear," Ilya Petrovitch maintained.

Raskolnikov picked up his hat and walked towards the door, but he

did not reach it....