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"I'll explain that afterwards, but now, my boy, I declare to

you... no, better 'I confess'... No, that's not right either; 'I

make a deposition and you take it.' I depose that I was reading,

that I was looking and searching...." he screwed up his eyes and

paused. "I was searching--and came here on purpose to do it--for

news of the murder of the old pawnbroker woman," he articulated

at last, almost in a whisper, bringing his face exceedingly close

to the face of Zametov. Zametov looked at him steadily, without

moving or drawing his face away. What struck Zametov afterwards

as the strangest part of it all was that silence followed for

exactly a minute, and that they gazed at one another all the

while.

"What if you have been reading about it?" he cried at last,

perplexed and impatient. "That's no business of mine! What of

it?"