Crime and Punishment

unexpected fact turned up. A peasant called Dushkin, who keeps a
dram-shop facing the house, brought to the police office a jeweller’s
case containing some gold ear-rings, and told a long rigamarole. ‘The
day before yesterday, just after eight o’clock’--mark the day and the
hour!--‘a journeyman house-painter, Nikolay, who had been in to see me
already that day, brought me this box of gold ear-rings and stones, and
asked me to give him two roubles for them. When I asked him where he got
them, he said that he picked them up in the street. I did not ask him
anything more.’ I am telling you Dushkin’s story. ‘I gave him a note’--a
rouble that is--‘for I thought if he did not pawn it with me he would
with another. It would all come to the same thing--he’d spend it on
drink, so the thing had better be with me. The further you hide it
the quicker you will find it, and if anything turns up, if I hear any
rumours, I’ll take it to the police.’ Of course, that’s all taradiddle;
he lies like a horse, for I know this Dushkin, he is a pawnbroker and
a receiver of stolen goods, and he did not cheat Nikolay out of a
thirty-rouble trinket in order to give it to the police. He was simply