The Dark by Leonid Andreyev

Day was already dawning, and in the house all was as quiet as in any other house, when the police appeared. After long arguments and hesitations Mark had been dispatched to the police station with the revolver and cartridges and a circumstantial account of the strange visitor. The police at once guessed who he was. For three days they had had him on their nerves. They had been seeing him here, there, and everywhere; but finally, all trace of him had been lost. Somebody had suggested searching the brothels of the district; but just then somebody else got another false clue, so the public resorts were forgotten.

The telephone tinkled excitedly. Half an hour later, in the chill of the October morning, heavy boots were scrunching the hoarfrost and along the empty streets moved in silence a company of policemen and detectives. In front of them, feeling in every inch of his body what a mistake it was to take the risks of such exposure, marched the district superintendent, an elderly man, very tall, in a thick official overcoat, the shape of a sack. He was yawning, burying his flabby red nose in his grey whiskers; and he was thinking that he ought to wait for the military; that it was nonsense to go for such a man without soldiers, with nothing but stupid drowsy policemen who didn't know how to shoot. More than once he reached the point of calling himself the slave of duty, yawning every time long and heavily.