“They’ll think I am an accomplice, because I let him know the signals as a great secret.”
“What signals? Whom did you tell? Confound you, speak more plainly.”
“I’m bound to admit the fact,” Smerdyakov drawled with pedantic composure, “that I have a secret with Fyodor Pavlovitch in this business. As you know yourself (if only you do know it) he has for several days past locked himself in as soon as night or even evening comes on. Of late you’ve been going upstairs to your room early every evening, and yesterday you did not come down at all, and so perhaps you don’t know how carefully he has begun to lock himself in at night, and even if Grigory Vassilyevitch comes to the door he won’t open to him till he hears his voice. But Grigory Vassilyevitch does not come, because I wait upon him alone in his room now. That’s the arrangement he made himself ever since this to-do with Agrafena Alexandrovna began. But at night, by his orders, I go away to the lodge so that I don’t get to sleep till midnight, but am on the watch, getting up and walking about the yard, waiting for Agrafena Alexandrovna to come. For the last few days he’s been perfectly frantic expecting her. What he argues is, she is afraid of him, Dmitri Fyodorovitch (Mitya, as he calls him), ‘and so,’ says he, ‘she’ll come the back-way, late at night, to me. You look out for her,’ says he, ‘till midnight and later; and if she does come, you run up and knock at my door or at the window from the garden. Knock at first twice, rather gently, and then three times more quickly, then,’ says he, ‘I shall understand at once that she has come, and will open the door to you quietly.’ Another signal he gave me in case anything unexpected happens. At first, two knocks, and then, after an interval, another much louder. Then he will understand that something has happened suddenly and that I must see him, and he will open to me so that I can go and speak to him. That’s all in case Agrafena Alexandrovna can’t come herself, but sends a message. Besides, Dmitri Fyodorovitch might come, too, so I must let him know he is near. His honor is awfully afraid of Dmitri