The evidence as to my being concerned in the death of General Mèzentzev was in the same way complete nonsense. When Kotliarèvsky had read me the documents, he asked me what I had to say about them. “It appears that the Government has not given up the attempt to implicate me in affairs not specified in the extradition treaty,” I said; “I shall therefore refuse to answer questions relating to any outside matter.” “Well, if you refuse to give evidence, we will leave it alone,” said Kotliarèvsky, with perfect composure, and he clapped the papers together again. “Besides, I may as well tell you that I attach no importance to the testimony of these good people. So far as I can make out, you had already gone abroad when Mèzentzev was murdered?” I assented. He seemed, nevertheless, to want to draw me out on this subject; but as I did not assist his endeavours in that direction he began to chat about indifferent matters, asking me questions as to our Socialist propaganda and our views. When, however, I quoted from some of our writings, he confessed that they were quite unknown to him. While we were talking, Bogdanòvitch came in from a neighbouring room. My readers will remember him as the gentleman who had been by way of identifying me at Freiburg. He greeted me, and sat down at the table. We met without any sign of ill-feeling or recollection of the sharp passage-at-arms we had had together. “I wish you would tell me,” I said to him, “as it is now a thing of the past, when did you see me in Kiëv? I have no remembrance of you.” He replied, laughing, that he had seen me once in prison; but I saw at once that he was bluffing. Evidently he had recognised me at Freiburg merely from Kotliarèvsky’s description. I was curious to know when exactly the Baden authorities had found out with whom they were dealing; and when I asked him this, Bogdanòvitch replied, “They knew some weeks before the extradition that you could not be Bulìgin, and then you were put under stricter supervision, with a guard before the prison. About ten days before my arrival they were informed that you were Deutsch.”[32] Footnote 32: While these pages are in the press comes the news (May, 1903) of Bogdanòvitch’s assassination. Having risen to be Governor of Ufa, he had suppressed in a very brutal manner a strike at Zlatoust. Shortly afterwards he was shot in a public park, and his assailants escaped.—_Trans._ It was now clear to me why I had been moved into a different cell, and also why Herr von Berg had forbidden me to speak Russian with my visitors. As I was going away, to be taken back to the House of Detention, I asked Kotliarèvsky whether I should soon be brought before a fully qualified tribunal. He could give me no decided answer, and himself seemed surprised at my being kept in Petersburg so long.