I cut its neck, as I always do, but then the chicken got away from me, and ran across the garden. That’s where the blood came from.”

Efrem testified that Nicholas really did slaughter chickens for the kitchen, in different places every time, but no one thought that a chicken with its throat half cut could run across the garden. On the other hand, no one could deny it either.

“Alibi,” smiled Dukovsky. “And what a stupid alibi.”

“Were you close to Annie?”

“Yes, I sinned with her.”

“And did the landlord take her away from you?”

“Not exactly. Right after me, it was Mr. Post, then Ivan Mikhailovich, and then it was milord himself. That’s how I was.”

Post looked embarrassed and scratched his left eye. Dukovsky stared at him closely, read the embarrassment on his face, and trembled. He noticed dark blue pants which the manager wore, a detail to which he had previously paid no attention. The pants reminded him of the blue thread he had found on the bush.

Rusty, in his turn, looked suspiciously at Post.

“You can go,” he said to Nicolas.

“And now, may I ask you a question, Mr. Post. You were definitely here on Saturday night, weren’t you?”

“Yes, at ten p.m. I had a dinner with Mark lvanovich.”

“And what happened then?”

Post became embarrassed, and stood up from the table.

“Then—then—I don’t remember,” he mumbled. “I drank a lot that day. I don’t even recall where I fell asleep. Why are you all looking at me this way? Do you think that I killed him?”

“Where did you get up the next morning?”

“In the servants’ room, in a small bed next to the oven. Anyone can testify to that. I don’t remember how I got there though.”

“Please don’t get excited. Do you know Annie?”

“There was nothing special about her.”

“Did you pass her on to Banks?”

“Yes. Hey, Efrem, bring us some more mushrooms. Do you want any more tea, Egraf Kuzmich?”

After these words, there was a heavy, horrifying silence which lasted for about five minutes. Dukovsky remained silent and stared at Post’s pale face, as if he wanted to hypnotize it with his sharp eyes. The detective broke the silence,

“We should go to the big house, and talk to Maria Ivanovna. I wonder whether she might be helpful to us.”

Rusty and his assistant thanked Post for the breakfast and went to the manor house. There, they found Maria Ivanovna, a forty-five-year-old spinster who was Banks’s sister, in the family room. She grew pale when she saw the large leather bags in the guests’ hands, and the badges on their uniform caps.

“First of all, dear lady, I must beg your forgiveness for interrupting your, so to speak, special mood,” started the old detective in a very gallant and courteous manner. “We have come to you to ask just a few questions. You must have heard about what has happened. We think that your brother was, so to speak, killed. Well, no one can escape from death, neither kings, nor peasants.