the only work that Dmitri was aware of were the cases that the Procurator had passed on to him, he was even more surprised. They were all of the ‘she-put-a-spell-on-my-cow’ sort. One of the duties of the Procurator’s office was to assess potential charges and decide if they merited further investigation. Dmitri had taken one look at these and decided that they did not.
The Procurator glanced at his watch and put the newspaper down.
‘You’re needed here,’ he said in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘I have to go out. I’m having lunch with Marputin.’
Dmitri shrugged his shoulders and settled down to reading the latest novel from St Petersburg. At lunch time, feeling the need for a breath of fresh air, he went out for a walk and in the main street he met Ludmilla Mitkin. She was dressed in Cossack boots, a long fur coat and a small astrakhan hat and looked absolutely ravishing: a considerable improvement, thought Dmitri, on what usually walked down the main street in Kursk.
‘Hello,’ she said, ‘would you like to give me some legal advice?’
Dmitri thought he would, and they turned into the park, where old women were sweeping the snow from the paths with brooms made of birch twigs. It had frozen hard the previous night after a partial thaw and the trees were heavy with icicles. They sparkled in the sun like chandeliers.
The last thing that Dmitri had expected was that she really would want legal advice. Unfortunately, she did.
‘My mother’s family,’ she said, ‘had an estate up in the north. It was where the family originally started and had been in our possession for nearly three hundred years. When the serfs were freed, we kept the house and a little land but agreed to pass most of it to the local peasants. It was the same kind of settlement as elsewhere. The Government lent them the money to pay for the land and they had to repay it over forty-nine years. Not surprisingly, most of them have been unable to keep up the repayments and now someone is going round offering to take over the repayments for them in return for the land. What I want to know is: is this legal?’
‘In principle, yes; but a lot depends on who has title to the land. If the title was passed to individuals, then the man has every right to purchase it. Usually, however, it was not passed to individuals; ownership was vested in the village community as a whole. If that was the case then it would be much harder for the man to get his hands on it.’
‘Why would it be harder?’
‘Because everyone in the village would have to agree. And there is no way,’ said Dmitri, ‘that everyone in a village, not in a Russian village, at any rate, is going to agree.’
‘Not even if they were all offered money? Lots of it?’
‘The argument would be very persuasive. Even so, there would be someone who wouldn’t agree. If only because he was holding out for more.’
‘There is no legal obstacle, however?’
‘Only that consent has to be found.’
Ludmilla looked cast down.
‘I was hoping there would be,’ she said.
‘I’m afraid not. Why were you hoping?’
She hesitated.
‘The person who is buying up the title has promised to return Yabloki Sad to the family.’
‘Well, that’s very nice,’ said Dmitri.
‘In return for something.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Dmitri. ‘What?’
‘Me.’
When Dmitri got back to the Court House he found Maximov, the Chief of Police, waiting at the top of the steps. He rushed down to meet him.
‘Dmitri Alexandrovich! Thank God you’re here! Have you any idea where Boris Petrovich is?’
‘Still at lunch, I expect.’
‘When will he be back?’
‘Tomorrow, I would think.’
‘Tomorrow!’ moaned the Chief of Police. He seized Dmitri by the arm. ‘You’ve no idea – I suppose you’ve no idea – who he’s having lunch with?’
‘Marputin, I believe.’
‘Marputin! Then he’ll be at the Metropole. Sasha, you run to the Metropole –’
‘What’s going on?’ asked Dmitri.
‘I need the sleigh. There’s some trouble at the Monastery about an icon –’
‘Mind if I come along?’ said Dmitri.
The smudge in front of the gates was bigger. From far off across the snow Dmitri could see the huge crowd.
‘I’m not going through that lot!’ said the driver.
‘Go round the back!’ instructed Maximov.
‘They always keep the gates locked!’
‘They’ll open them when they see us coming.’
‘I hope they do!’
At the last moment the driver swung off the road and began to head round the side of the Monastery. Some of the small figures, guessing his intention, started running.
The driver whipped the horses.
They were round the back of the buildings now and could see the rear gates. They remained obstinately closed.
A group of dark figures came blundering towards them through the snow.
The gates suddenly swung open.
The sleigh dashed through.
Almost before they had passed the gates, they crashed shut again.
‘So what’s all this about, then. Father?’ asked Maximov.
‘It’s the One-Legged Lady. They don’t like her being missing.’
‘Well, I don’t suppose you like it, either.’
‘They’re blaming us.’
‘Ridiculous!’ snorted Maximov. ‘They need a good kick up the ass, that’s what!’
‘There’s someone whipping them up,’ said the Father Superior.
‘Oh, is there?’ said Maximov.
He marched down to the gates.
‘Now, lads,’ he said through the bars, ‘what’s the trouble? We can’t have this, you know, or else we’ll have to get the Cossacks here. You don’t want that, do you?’
‘They’ve flogged off the Old Lady!’ shouted someone from the back of the crowd.
‘Nonsense! No one’s flogged her off. Someone’s nicked her, that’s all.’
‘Yes, and we know who it was!’
‘No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. Someone’s been whispering a lot of nonsense in your ear.’
‘She’s missing, isn’t she? That’s not nonsense!’
‘And we’re looking for her,’ said Maximov. ‘That’s not nonsense, either.’
‘You’re taking your time about it!’
‘Well, it takes time.’
‘Especially when you’re not looking too hard!’
‘Why are we listening to him?’ said someone contemptuously.
‘You’d do better to listen to me,’ said Maximov, ‘than to listen to some of the people you’ve been listening to!’
But the mood of the crowd was against him. He tried again but could hardly make his words heard in the general