He went back into the room, looked grimly at the sleeping Ostap, wiped his pince-nez and took up the razor from the window sill.
There were still some dried scales of oil paint on its jagged edge.
He put the razor in his pocket, walked past Ostap again, without looking at him, but listening to his breathing, and then went out into the corridor.
It was dark and sleepy out there.
Everyone had evidently gone to bed.
In the pitch darkness of the corridor Ippolit Matveyevich suddenly smiled in the most evil way, and felt the skin creep on his forehead.
To test this new sensation he smiled again.
He suddenly remembered a boy at school who had been able to move his ears.
Ippolit Matveyevich went as far as the stairs and listened carefully.
There was no one there.
From the street came the drumming of a carthorse's hooves, intentionally loud and clear as though someone was counting on an abacus.
As stealthily as a cat, the marshal went back into the room, removed twenty-five roubles and the pair of pliers from Ostap's jacket hanging on the back of a chair, put on his own yachting cap, and again listened intently.
Ostap was sleeping quietly.
His nose and lungs were working perfectly, smoothly inhaling and exhaling air.
A brawny arm hung down to the floor.
Conscious of the second-long pulses in his temple, Ippolit Matveyevich slowly rolled up his right sleeve above the elbow and bound a wafer-patterned towel around his bare arm; he stepped back to the door, took the razor out of his pocket, and gauging the position of the furniture in the room turned the switch.
The light went out, but the room was still lit by a bluish aquarium-like light from the street lamps.
"So much the better," whispered Ippolit Matveyevich.
He approached the back of the chair and, drawing back his hand with the razor, plunged the blade slantways into Ostap's throat, pulled it out, and jumped backward towards the wall.
The smooth operator gave a gurgle like a kitchen sink sucking down the last water.
Ippolit Matveyevich managed to avoid being splashed with blood.
Wiping the wall with his jacket, he stole towards the blue door, and for a brief moment looked back at Ostap.
His body had arched twice and slumped against the backs of the chairs.
The light from the street moved across a black puddle forming on the floor.
What is that puddle? wondered Vorobyaninov. Oh, yes, it's blood. Comrade Bender is dead.
He unwound the slightly stained towel, threw it aside, carefully put the razor on the floor, and left, closing the door quietly.
Finding himself in the street, Vorobyaninov scowled and, muttering
"The jewels are all mine, not just six per cent," went off to Kalanchev Square.
He stopped at the third window from the front entrance to the railway club.
The mirrorlike windows of the new club shone pearl-grey in the approaching dawn.
Through the damp air came the muffled voices of goods trains.
Ippolit Matveyevich nimbly scrambled on to the ledge, pushed the frames, and silently dropped into the corridor.
Finding his way without difficulty through the grey pre-dawn halls of the club, he reached the chess-room and went over to the chair, bumping his head on a portrait of Lasker hanging on the wall.
He was in no hurry.
There was no point in it.
No one was after him.
Grossmeister Bender was asleep for ever in the little pink house.
Ippolit Matveyevich sat down on the floor, gripped the chair between his sinewy legs, and with the coolness of a dentist, began extracting the tacks, not missing a single one.
His work was complete at the sixty-second tack.
The English chintz and canvas lay loosely on top of the stuffing.
He had only to lift them to see the caskets, boxes, and cases containing the precious stones.
Straight into a car, thought Ippolit Matveyevich, who had learned the facts of life from the smooth operator, then to the station, and on to the Polish frontier.
For a small gem they should get me across, then . . .
And desiring to find out as soon as possible what would happen then, Ippolit Matveyevich pulled away the covering from the chair.
Before his eyes were springs, beautiful English springs, and stuffing, wonderful pre-war stuffing, the like of which you never see nowadays.
But there was nothing else in the chair.
Ippolit Matveyevich mechanically turned the chair inside out and sat for a whole hour clutching it between his legs and repeating in a dull voice:
"Why isn't there anything there?
It can't be right.
It can't be."