The indictment ran as follows: On the 17th of January, 18--, in
the lodging-house Mauritania, occurred the sudden death of the
Second Guild merchant, Therapont Emilianovich Smelkoff, of
Kourgan.
The local police doctor of the fourth district certified that
death was due to rupture of the heart, owing to the excessive use
of alcoholic liquids. The body of the said Smelkoff was interred.
After several days had elapsed, the merchant Timokhin, a
fellow-townsman and companion of the said Smelkoff, returned from
St. Petersburg, and hearing the circumstances that accompanied
the death of the latter, notified his suspicions that the death
was caused by poison, given with intent to rob the said Smelkoff
of his money. This suspicion was corroborated on inquiry, which
proved: 1. That shortly before his death the said Smelkoff had received
the sum of 3,800 roubles from the bank. When an inventory of the
property of the deceased was made, only 312 roubles and 16
copecks were found.
2. The whole day and night preceding his death the said Smelkoff
spent with Lubka (alias Katerina Maslova) at her home and in the
lodging-house Mauritania, which she also visited at the said
Smelkoff's request during his absence, to get some money, which
she took out of his portmanteau in the presence of the servants
of the lodging-house Mauritania, Euphemia Botchkova and Simeon
Kartinkin, with a key given her by the said Smelkoff. In the
portmanteau opened by the said Maslova, the said Botchkova and
Kartinkin saw packets of 100-rouble bank-notes.
3. On the said Smelkoff's return to the lodging-house Mauritania,
together with Lubka, the latter, in accordance with the attendant
Kartinkin's advice, gave the said Smelkoff some white powder
given to her by the said Kartinkin, dissolved in brandy.
4. The next morning the said Lubka (alias Katerina Maslova) sold
to her mistress, the witness Kitaeva, a brothel-keeper, a diamond
ring given to her, as she alleged, by the said Smelkoff.
5. The housemaid of the lodging-house Mauritania, Euphemia
Botchkova, placed to her account in the local Commercial Bank
1,800 roubles. The postmortem examination of the body of the said
Smelkoff and the chemical analysis of his intestines proved
beyond doubt the presence of poison in the organism, so that
there is reason to believe that the said Smelkoff's death was
caused by poisoning.
When cross-examined, the accused, Maslova, Botchkova, and
Kartinkin, pleaded not guilty, deposing--Maslova, that she had
really been sent by Smelkoff from the brothel, where she "works,"
as she expresses it, to the lodging-house Mauritania to get the
merchant some money, and that, having unlocked the portmanteau
with a key given her by the merchant, she took out 40 roubles, as
she was told to do, and that she had taken nothing more; that
Botchkova and Kartinkin, in whose presence she unlocked and
locked the portmanteau, could testify to the truth of the
statement.
She gave this further evidence--that when she came to the
lodging-house for the second time she did, at the instigation of
Simeon Kartinkin, give Smelkoff some kind of powder, which she
thought was a narcotic, in a glass of brandy, hoping he would
fall asleep and that she would be able to get away from him; and
that Smelkoff, having beaten her, himself gave her the ring when
she cried and threatened to go away.