Book 1 Chapter 10 The Trial - The Indictment

4. The next morning the said Lubka (alias Katerina Maslova) sold
to her mistress, the witness Kitaeva, a brothel-keeper, a diamond
ring given to her, as she alleged, by the said Smelkoff.

5. The housemaid of the lodging-house Mauritania, Euphemia
Botchkova, placed to her account in the local Commercial Bank
1,800 roubles. The postmortem examination of the body of the said
Smelkoff and the chemical analysis of his intestines proved
beyond doubt the presence of poison in the organism, so that
there is reason to believe that the said Smelkoff's death was
caused by poisoning.

When cross-examined, the accused, Maslova, Botchkova, and
Kartinkin, pleaded not guilty, deposing--Maslova, that she had
really been sent by Smelkoff from the brothel, where she "works,"
as she expresses it, to the lodging-house Mauritania to get the
merchant some money, and that, having unlocked the portmanteau
with a key given her by the merchant, she took out 40 roubles, as
she was told to do, and that she had taken nothing more; that
Botchkova and Kartinkin, in whose presence she unlocked and
locked the portmanteau, could testify to the truth of the
statement.

She gave this further evidence--that when she came to the
lodging-house for the second time she did, at the instigation of
Simeon Kartinkin, give Smelkoff some kind of powder, which she
thought was a narcotic, in a glass of brandy, hoping he would
fall asleep and that she would be able to get away from him; and
that Smelkoff, having beaten her, himself gave her the ring when
she cried and threatened to go away.

The accused, Euphemia Botchkova, stated that she knew nothing
about the missing money, that she had not even gone into
Smelkoff's room, but that Lubka had been busy there all by
herself; that if anything had been stolen, it must have been done
by Lubka when she came with the merchant's key to get his money.