Pyotr Perkhotin reports Mitya to the police and prompts an investigation

Pyotr Perkhotin’s decision to alert the police marks the point at which scattered, disturbing signs surrounding Dmitri begin to enter an official investigation. Perhotin has no conclusive proof that Dmitri went to Fyodor Pavlovich’s house or that a crime occurred there. What he does have is a sequence of circumstances he cannot dismiss: Dmitri had taken a pestle while searching for Grushenka, returned without it, and had blood on his hands. Perhotin’s attempt to establish what happened turns private alarm into a report for the authorities.

The Inquiry at Fenya’s House

Perhotin begins by going to the widow Morozov’s house, where he has to persist before he is admitted. Fenya, still shaken by the fright she had experienced two hours earlier, allows him into the kitchen but asks that the houseporter remain present. Her unease sets the tone for the questioning: Perhotin is not simply collecting a calm account but trying to sort useful information from a witness’s agitation.

Fenya supplies the essential sequence. When Dmitri ran out to look for Grushenka, he had seized a pestle from the mortar; when he came back, he no longer had it, and his hands were smeared with blood. Fenya’s account exaggerates the physical detail, but Perhotin can distinguish that exaggeration from what he knows independently: he himself saw blood on Dmitri’s hands and helped wash them. The convergence of the two accounts makes the blood significant, while leaving the pestle’s destination unresolved.

The Unanswered Question of the Pestle

Perhotin concentrates on a question that the scene cannot settle: whether Dmitri carried the pestle to Fyodor Pavlovich’s house. He returns to the point in his questioning, yet Fenya tells him nothing conclusive. The missing object therefore functions as a link Perhotin suspects may connect Dmitri’s movements to his father’s house, not as proof that the connection has been established.

That distinction shapes his next decision. The most direct course would be to go straight to Fyodor Pavlovich’s house and find out whether anything had happened there. Perhotin instead hesitates over what such a discovery might mean. If Dmitri had killed his father, reporting it would bring scandal, the very prospect Perhotin dreads. His reluctance does not erase the evidence he has gathered, but it delays the most direct inquiry and makes his eventual choice to act a decision made against his own fear of public consequences.

Madame Hohlakov’s Account

Still uneasy, Perhotin goes to Madame Hohlakov rather than directly to the police captain. He wants to verify whether she had just given Dmitri money, a detail that could help explain Dmitri’s circumstances and movements. In the conversation, Madame Hohlakov misunderstands the danger Perhotin is trying to describe and asks whether Dmitri has killed somebody else. Perhotin insists on explaining the matter plainly before drawing her back to the question of money.

Madame Hohlakov emphatically denies giving Dmitri anything. She says that she refused his request because he could not appreciate the money. Perhotin asks her to confirm that denial, and her answer removes the possibility that a loan from her accounts for funds Dmitri might have obtained. The exchange gives Perhotin a concrete result, though it does not answer his central question about the pestle or confirm what occurred at Fyodor Pavlovich’s house.

The Report and Its Consequence

After hearing Madame Hohlakov’s account, Perhotin announces that he will go directly to the police captain, tell him everything, and leave the matter to his judgment. Madame Hohlakov approves his choice and identifies the captain as a man she knows and regards well. Perhotin’s report thus passes the matter from his private efforts to verify details into official hands.

The action is consequential precisely because it remains an act of reporting rather than a declaration of certainty. Perhotin does not claim to know where Dmitri went or what happened at his father’s house. He brings together the missing pestle, the blood Perhotin himself saw, Fenya’s account, and Madame Hohlakov’s denial of a loan, then asks the police captain to decide what should follow. The investigation begins with circumstantial evidence and unresolved questions, not with a completed explanation.