Resurrection

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.