I thank you for your offer. I promise that I’ll come to you, and I’ll come often.
But this is what I want to tell you. You have been open with me, and so I’ve made up my mind to ask your advice, especially as I believe you’re firstrate in such affairs.”
I told him the whole story of Smith and his granddaughter, beginning with the scene in the restaurant.
Strange to say, as I told my tale it seemed to me from his eyes that he knew something about the story.
I asked him.
“No, not exactly,” he answered, “though I had heard something about Smith, a story of some old man dying in a restaurant.
But I really do know something about Mme. Bubnov.
Only two months ago I got some money out of that lady. je prends mon bien ou je le trouve, and that’s the only respect in which I am like Moliere.
Though I squeezed a hundred roubles out of her, I vowed at the time I’d wring another five hundred out of her before I’d done.
She’s a nasty woman!
She’s in an unmentionable line of business.
That wouldn’t matter, but sometimes it goes too far.
Don’t imagine I’m a Don Quixote, please.
The point is that I may make a very good thing of it, and when I met Sizobryuhov half an hour ago I was awfully pleased.
Sizobryuhov was evidently brought here, and the fat man brought him, and as I know what the fat man’s special trade is, I conclude ... oh, well, I’ll show him up!
I’m very glad I heard from you about that girl; it’s another clue for me.
I undertake all sorts of private jobs, you know, and I know some queer people!
I investigated a little affair for a prince not long ago, an affair, I tell you, one wouldn’t have expected from that prince.
Or would you care to hear another story about a married woman?
You come and see me, old man, and I shall have subjects ready for you that people will never believe in if you write about them. . . .”
“And what was the name of that prince?” I asked, with a foreboding of something.
“What do you want to know for?
All right, it’s Valkovsky.”
“Pyotr?”
“Yes.
Do you know him?
“Yes, but not very well.
Well, Masloboev, I shall come to you to inquire about that gentleman more than once again,” I said, getting up. “You’ve interested me greatly.”
“Well, old boy, you can come as often as you like.
I can tell you fine tales, though only within certain limits, do you understand?
Or else one loses one’s credit and honour, in business, that is, and all the rest of it.”
“All right, as far as honour permits.”
I was really agitated.
He noticed it.
“Well, what do you say about the story I told you?
Have you thought of something?”
“Your story?
Well, wait a couple of minutes. I will pay.”
He went up to the buffet, and there, as though by chance, stood close by the young man in the tunic, who was so unceremoniously called Mitroshka.
It seemed to me that Masloboev knew him a good deal better than he had admitted to me.
Anyway, it was evident that they were not meeting for the first time.
Mitroshka was a rather originallooking fellow.
In his sleeveless tunic and red silk shirt, with his sharp but handsome features, with his younglooking, swarthy face, and his bold, sparkling eyes he made a curious and not unattractive impression.
There was an assumption of jauntiness in his gestures, and yet at the moment he was evidently restraining himself, aiming rather at an air of businesslike gravity and sedateness.
“Look here, Vanya,” said Masloboev, when he rejoined me, “look me up this evening at seven o’clock, and I may have something to tell you.
By myself, you see, I’m no use; in old days I was, but now I’m only a drunkard and have got out of the way of things.
But I’ve still kept my old connexions; I may find out something. I sniff about among all sorts of sharp people; that’s how I get on. In my free time, that is when I’m sober, I do something myself, it’s true, through friends, too . . . mostly in the investigation line.... But that’s neither here nor there.
Enough. Here’s my address, in Shestilavotchny Street.
But now, my boy, I’m really too far gone.
I’ll swallow another – and home.