We must search your things."
They entered the house. The soldiers and the police-officer unstrapped
Aksionov's luggage and searched it. Suddenly the officer drew a knife
out of a bag, crying, "Whose knife is this?"
Aksionov looked, and seeing a blood-stained knife taken from his bag,
he was frightened.
"How is it there is blood on this knife?"
Aksionov tried to answer, but could hardly utter a word, and only
stammered: "I--don't know--not mine." Then the police-officer said:
"This morning the merchant was found in bed with his throat cut. You
are the only person who could have done it. The house was locked from
inside, and no one else was there. Here is this blood-stained knife in
your bag and your face and manner betray you! Tell me how you killed
him, and how much money you stole?"
Aksionov swore he had not done it; that he had not seen the merchant
after they had had tea together; that he had no money except eight
thousand rubles of his own, and that the knife was not his. But his
voice was broken, his face pale, and he trembled with fear as though
he went guilty.
The police-officer ordered the soldiers to bind Aksionov and to put
him in the cart.
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