Sherlock Holmes in Russia (17 page)

I obeyed therewith. In twenty minutes we were ready. The interpreter arrived just then. Holmes told him briefly what he had noticed and advised him to get the Minister to assist him in switching the Emir’s bedroom and office and place sentries there for security. When all this had been said, the interpreter left and we were off to see the bosun.

The signing-on ritual was short and simple.

We were shown our places, our watch was assigned, our surnames written down, Holmes as Gvozdeff and I became Panshin. After that they let us go. By a fortunate coincidence our
watches coincided. There were still three hours before our first watch, so we wandered up and down the lower deck.

Holmes wanted to pay special attention to that part of the ship lying under the Emir’s quarters. But to carry out any substantial observation of this part of the vessel was completely impossible, because here the whole of the lower deck was filled with the baggage of the Emir and his retinue, the chests being solidly packed from the deck to the ceiling. This discovery put Holmes in an especially good mood.

‘Undoubtedly, there is a way of getting between the chests to the Emir’s bedroom. The thief isn’t going to stay there for long and, one way or another, will emerge,’ he said, having finished his inspection. ‘But he has to have an accomplice on board. The accomplice blocked this particular area with chests in such a way that nothing could be checked between them. My dear Watson, let’s find out who supervised the loading.’

‘That shouldn’t be too difficult,’ I answered.

‘If that’s what you think, you do it,’ said Holmes.

Without a word, I made my way to the bottom deck where those sailors who were not on watch took refreshments and rested. And as soon as I appeared amongst them, I began to abuse one of them, ‘How the hell did you stow away the luggage, so that nobody can get through or even crawl through!’

‘And what the hell are you barking at me for,’ he bit back. ‘Wasn’t me indicated what to put where.’

‘Then who was it?’

‘Who? That new fellow, Skalkin, or whatever his name is!’

Hearing his name, an older, bearded sailor looked at me intently and said angrily, ‘Well, it was me, and what got in your way?’

‘The devil take you!’ I yelled. ‘I can’t get through.’

‘No need for you to get through there,’ he muttered. ‘So shut up or I’ll bash your face in.’

I managed to smooth over the quarrel, went to Holmes and told him everything I had discovered.

‘Splendid!’ exclaimed Holmes. ‘That means he is new. It’s worth knowing and he will have to be watched.’

Three hours passed and we reported for our watch. Holmes’s watch was on the lower deck. I was on the upper, by the wheel. My watch began at eight and passed quietly. But when I had completed it and went down to meet Holmes, who had completed his, from the look he threw at me, I realized something unusual had happened.

But it wasn’t possible to have a discussion. We weren’t alone and could be overheard. We went down to the sailors’ quarters, undressed and went to sleep.

It was still completely dark when Holmes woke me up. He slept beside me and a slight touch from him was enough to bring me to my feet. I yawned several times and tossed and turned as if to show that I had slept enough and began to dress. We went up unnoticed and crept into our cabin.

With intense curiosity I waited for what Holmes had to tell me. ‘And so, in a couple of hours, the situation should be clear,’ he said softly.

‘You’ve found something out tonight?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘It was just before eleven o’clock at night. I was on my watch and observed Skalkin carefully emerging from the sailors’ quarters. I pretended to be dozing. He looked at me suspiciously, but was apparently reassured and dived in amongst the luggage. There was nobody there. I sat with my back to him, watching intently through a mirror which I had taken the precaution of hanging up on the wall and which he hadn’t noticed. Thanks to this mirror, I could see everything behind me. He threw another glance at me, was still reassured
that I wasn’t watching, and carefully approached one of the chests. Pushing it aside, he quickly disappeared in the gap that appeared. I leaped up from my place, carefully approached and put my ear to the edge of the gap he had created. It was just as I expected. Out of the pile of chests I overheard a conversation.

‘“It’s dangerous to come out,” whispered one voice.

‘“I know,” said another.

‘“Low water at the Jiguli sector of the river would be best. Are the fellows ready?”

‘“Yes, they’re none of them locals. They unload barges offshore. Nobody knows us. Is the cofferdam in order?” you probably know, Watson, that’s the compartment that separates two bulkheads.

‘“Yes, it’s fine,” the other assured him. “Nothing else?”

‘“Nothing. Be off.”

‘I heard a rustle and rushed to my place, keeping up the pretence that I was dozing. Skalkin moved the chest back to its previous position and went to the sailors’ quarters.’

‘But what does this conversation signify,’ I asked.

‘I don’t know exactly,’ Holmes shrugged. ‘But Jiguli is not far and there is some sort of sandbank, not far from which a barge will be unloading on shore. That’s where you and I, Watson, must keep our eyes peeled. That’s where the thief has to vanish, and it would be a great shame for us if we were to let him slip through our fingers.’

‘And according to you, what’s all this about a cofferdam?’

‘I don’t know,’ Holmes said thoughtfully.

While we were talking, dawn had broken. We left our cabin and, unnoticed, descended to the lower deck to go our separate ways. At eight o’clock in the morning our watch began.

This time Holmes was by the wheel, while I was instructed to stand on the upper bridge, nearly next to him. I had to transmit certain instructions and wave signalling flags when we met other ships, which in those busy days sailed up and down the Volga one after another.

Our ship was sailing along the Jiguli sector. Carefully scrutinizing the river banks, I still kept on looking stealthily at Holmes. He stood there turning the wheel like a seasoned sailor.

Suddenly, as I looked at him, with his eyes he was indicating something at a distance. At this point the Volga widens. I looked at the side Holmes was looking at and there, on the right bank, men were working on a barge. We were nearly parallel to it. It was probably being unloaded.

I was hardly able to get a good look at it, when I heard a noise from the bridge, ‘Where, where are you going?’ It was the captain and in an unnatural voice he was yelling, ‘Turn the wheel to the left, to the left!’

The wheel began to spin madly. But the ship, instead of turning left, continued straight on, if anything, more to the right. The helmsman and Holmes appeared anxious and lost. The captain himself leaped to the wheel and began to turn it in a frenzy. But the impossible was happening. Instead of veering left, the ship headed straight for the sandbank.

‘Stop! Back! Back!’ the captain yelled through the megaphone at the engine room.

But it was too late. A crackling noise came from beneath our feet, we felt a light shudder, and our ship ploughed up the sandbank virtually at full steam. There was an incredible rumpus. The engines were put into reverse, but did not obey. No matter what the captain and his crew undertook, the ship wouldn’t budge.

‘Watch out!’ Holmes whispered.

The captain now gave orders for distress signals to be raised. These were seen from the barge by the shore. Soon enough, a
crowded longboat glided away from it in our direction. As it approached, Holmes began to count the number of labourers aboard it coming to help. There were twenty-three of them, ordinary porters, and the overseer.

The captain and the men in the longboat agreed on the remuneration and the overseer ordered twenty of the men up on the ship. The longboat was by the right-hand ladder. Holmes and I scrutinized carefully everyone coming on board, but nobody excited our suspicion. This is when the interpreter came up to me.

‘Be prepared,’ Holmes whispered to him. ‘Point me out to the sentries and order them to obey my orders. Prepare to lower a boat. The outcome is at hand! Hurry!’

The interpreter rushed off to do as he was told.

In the meantime, work on the ship went on at a furious pace. After two hours of intensive effort, the ship somehow shifted from the sandbank and the barge labourers began to go down the ladder to their longboat. I began to count them again. One after another, twenty men went down that ladder.

And suddenly Holmes whispered anxiously, ‘Look! Look! There’s twenty-four leaving.’

I hastily recounted the number of men in the longboat. To my amazement, I noticed there was just that one extra man aboard. This was all the more surprising, because I had personally counted that out of the twenty-three originally in the long-boat, twenty had come up and twenty had gone down.

‘Yes! Yes!’ Holmes whispered anxiously. ‘He got out from under. That’s what the business with the cofferdam was all about. Under water there must be an exit leading into a cofferdam affixed to the bottom of the ship. He went out through that!’

And turning round, he shouted loudly, ‘Arrest the sailor Skalkin. Guard! Into the boat!’

The alarm was raised. Skalkin was instantly seized, tied with ropes, while a minute later, together with the sentries, we were
speeding in pursuit of the longboat on its way at a fast clip. The heavy longboat began to slow down. With every minute, the distance between us lessened.

‘Halt. Or we fire!’ yelled Holmes.

I thought there would be a riot on the longboat, but the threat worked and it stopped yards from the Jiguli shore.

In that moment, we saw a figure leap into the waist-high water and move towards the reeds.

‘Shoot him!’ commanded Holmes.

The man dived, came up and dived again. Shots rang out but missed their target.

‘Dammit!’ yelled Holmes, beside himself. ‘Follow me!’

With one leap he was in the water and flung himself towards the fleeing man. ‘Arrest the crew of the longboat. Five men follow me!’ he shouted.

Knee deep in water, we chased after the unknown man. Holmes, revolver in hand, was in front. Now the fleeing man, in water a little deeper than his ankles, suddenly stumbled and an inflated ox bladder flew out of his hand.

‘Get the bladder!’ shouted Holmes without turning round. I grabbed at it.

The escapee made a gesture of total despair, as if the loss had been of everything at stake. He reached into his pocket and out came a revolver. All of a sudden it went off twice at Holmes and the man vanished into the reeds. Holmes shot thrice and then he, too, vanished amongst the reeds.

A few minutes later, their figures appeared atop the steep bluff above us and from which we heard more shots.

Then, as we stumbled upwards, we saw the two opponents fall on each other and heard Holmes cry out, ‘Kartzeff!’

And the end came. No matter how long we searched for Holmes, no matter how loudly we hailed him, the deserted river bank remained deaf and dumb to us. Holmes and his enemy had vanished and we even couldn’t establish where they had gone.

Tired and despondent, we returned to the ship after a four-hour-long search. ‘What’s this?’ asked Mahomet-Sultan through the interpreter, pointing at the bladder in my hand. I handed him my wretched trophy and something rolled around inside. Intuitively, I took back the bladder, tore it apart with my bare fingers and suddenly a huge black pearl rolled round our feet.

What happened to Holmes, I know not. All I know is that I went no further. I stayed at the scene of this sad occurrence with four sentries but a three-day search yielded no results.

From the papers, I was later to learn that the sailor Skalkin was the escaped prisoner, Foma Belkin. He confessed to being an accomplice of the notorious swindler and burglar, Kartzeff, in the theft of the pearl aboard the ship. An inspection of the ship revealed that under its right side there was some sort of cofferdam, through which the thief had crept out through an exit below the water line. The barge overseer was another member of the gang, but the barge labourers were completely innocent. Apart from all this, on the right-hand side of the ship, a cunningly attached rudder was found. It was this that Kartzeff had been able to operate, to bypass the ship’s rudder, making it plough into the sandbank.

This happened in 190*.

Sherlock Holmes had come to Nijni-Novgorod partly on holiday, partly to acquaint himself better with faraway Russia, of which the English have only a vague notion. Although there were no professional reasons for his visit, nevertheless, it was still noted locally. No matter how hard he tried not to be noticed, to remain aloof as he strolled around the town, he was followed by a bevy of curious citizens and heard his name whispered behind his back. Of course, he thought that all this attention was idle curiosity, but things turned out otherwise.

He was staying at the Post Hotel (by the Black Pond). On his third day, returning to his room, he was told by a porter that a gentleman had asked for him, and when told that he was out, had requested that he leave a message to indicate at what time he would be available for consultation.

‘When is he coming for my answer?’ asked Holmes.

‘This very evening,’ the hotel porter answered.

‘Splendid!’ said the detective. ‘I wasn’t intending to go anywhere in any case.’

The porter went off and Holmes stretched himself out on the settee with a local newspaper.

Here it must be said that the famous English detective had once spent two years in Buenos Aires, where he had boarded with a family of Russian émigrés. This close association with them resulted in his being fluent in Russian, both as regards knowledge of the language and pronunciation. Of course, he could never get rid of his English accent, but he spoke with such clarity, and his knowledge of the language was so profound, one would have thought he had spent an uninterrupted ten years in Russia.

Having read one newspaper, he picked up another, but soon his lids grew heavy. He covered his face against flies with a newspaper and dozed off.

A light tap at the door woke him. He must have slept for some time, because it was already dark outside. He rose, changed swiftly and said in his resonant voice, ‘Come in!’

The door opened and a thickset, middle-aged man came in. He was a man of some presence, wearing a summer coat cut in the latest fashion. In one gloved hand he held a felt hat and a silver-handled gold-monogrammed cane. He bowed courteously and asked to be excused for having called without an appointment.

‘You must be the gentleman who called earlier,’ said Holmes.

‘Indeed I am! I was here some hours ago but, unfortunately, missed you. I do beg of you to hear me out—’

‘I am at your service,’ Sherlock Holmes bowed. ‘I presume
that you need my assistance in some matter, but I am surprised how you found out who I am, and that I am here at all.’

‘Oh!’ exclaimed the stranger. ‘The whole town is talking about you. In any case, your fame has crossed the sea and it is not surprising that, hearing of your arrival, I immediately decided to meet you.’

Flattered by such a response, Sherlock Holmes smiled and bowed. ‘Do take off your coat and make yourself comfortable.’

The guest threw off his coat and approached the detective, ‘Allow me, then, the honour of presenting myself. Ivan Vladimirovitch Terehoff,’ he said, giving his name, patronymic and surname. ‘I am a local merchant and a member of the First Guild.’ He gave a little bow.

‘Very pleased to meet you,’ answered the detective. ‘How can I be of service to you?’

Terehoff sank into an armchair, lit a cigarette and began his story. ‘I sell linen, lingerie and fashionable goods of every sort. My father and grandfather were also in the same line of business. Ours is an old and well-established family business. Usually, I trade in town, but every summer we have a fair. Our fair dates from the thirteenth century and traders come from Central Asia, Siberia and many, many other faraway places. For the period of this Great Fair I rent premises in the Commercial Centre. That is where I now have a shop, along the right-hand side of the arcade.

‘Up until this year everything went well, and I had nothing to worry about. But this year, a whole series of unusual events have shocked not only my employees, but also my prospective customers who, by the way, are already gathering for the fair.

‘Before the shop was ready to open, my three assistants and I were putting away merchandise on the shelves and decorating the display windows. We had worked by the light of electric lamps. I had opened the shop myself and locked it up myself, first having switched off the electric lights when we were done
for the day. I put the locks on the door and the metal grill over the windows. I turned to go, when the senior shop assistant leapt to my side. His face was as pale as our linen. He was trembling.

‘“What’s happened?” ‘ I asked in alarm.

‘“For God’s sake,” ‘ he whispered. ‘“For God’s sake, look in the display window.” ‘

‘I looked, and stepped back in horror.

‘Some sort of creature resembling a human figure wrapped in a shroud danced as if possessed inside my shop, shaking itself all over as it danced.

‘The two other shop assistants were struck dumb. They were as terrified as my senior assistant and I were at that moment.

‘We stood there for several minutes, rooted to the spot.

‘I’m not timid by nature. I’ve been educated abroad, and I’m a university graduate. I’m not one to believe in black magic.

‘But even I was a little afraid. Not for long, though.

‘I recovered, took myself in hand and began to undo the locks.

‘But just in case, I sent one of the shop assistants to fetch a policeman and ordered the senior assistant to watch the apparition through the window.

‘Hardly had I taken the second lock off, when he yelled out, “Gone! God preserve us sinful creatures.”

‘He said that it had vanished all of a sudden and the shop was plunged into darkness again.

‘The policeman now appeared with the assistant sent for him.

‘“There is someone in the shop,” I said to the policeman. “Come in with me and let’s look.”

‘I unlocked the door, switched on the lights and with great difficulty persuaded the assistants to follow me inside. The shop was exactly as we had left it. There was no trace of the apparition, no sign of revelry. The five of us searched every nook and cranny. We searched under the counters, in drawers and boxes, turned over the entire stock. A mouse would not have eluded us.
But … all our exertions were in vain. Was it a figment of our imagination? I decided that that was the case.

‘Evidently my staff thought otherwise.

‘The next day we continued with our work.

‘But in the evening, just as I locked up the shop, the entire incident was re-enacted.

‘The pale apparition shook and pranced about. Now I had a chance to look at it. There was no face, just a skull and a set of terrifying bared teeth.

‘The apparition skipped in a paroxysm on the same spot, threatening us with a long knife, which it held in one bony hand.

‘We trembled in terror. We wanted to run.

‘I made a superhuman effort and again unlocked the shop. That very instance the apparition vanished.

‘Inside, it was as if nothing had happened.

‘My employees fled and a crowd of people from neighbouring shops gathered round me. The whole of the Commercial Centre was there. Everyone was terrified, confused, bewildered, dismayed. Some of those present had caught a brief glimpse of the apparition. They were now describing it to the others who, in their turn, were torn between fear and curiosity.

‘Someone said to sprinkle holy water inside the shop and conduct prayers.

‘The more courageous went in with me and, again, the shop was searched. And yet again, nothing and nobody.

‘The third day was the eve of the opening of the Great Fair.

‘Ignoring my pleas, my employees flatly refused to enter the shop. Holy water had to be sprinkled, religious rites had to be carried out, before they relented. I had also taken the precaution of asking the help of the Chief of Detectives. Two detectives were assigned to the shop. They searched it thoroughly before I locked up, tested the floor and walls, but found nothing.

‘It was only after I switched off the lights and put the locks on the door that the two detectives themselves and my employees
stepped back in horror from the display window through which they had been peering.

‘“It’s a corpse!” someone screamed in an inhuman voice.

‘My hair stood on end.

‘There in the shop, I saw a large coffin, inside which a loathsome skeleton sat, holding on to the edges with skeletal fingers. The others told me that I had missed the part when the lid of the coffin fell open and the skeleton sat up.

‘The shroud no longer covered it.

‘And then the skeleton suddenly bounded out of the coffin, and once on its feet, began a frenzied dance. Next, a thick column of smoke blew out of the coffin and everything vanished as if by magic.’

Ivan Vladimirovitch Terehoff fell silent and asked for a drink.

‘A drop of port is just what is called for,’ said Sherlock Holmes, and poured him a drink.

Terehoff reached for the glass and drained it.

‘Your story intrigues me more and more by the minute,’ said the English detective. ‘Do go on.’

‘I think I got to the point where the apparition vanished,’ Terehoff resumed his account. ‘My employees made themselves scarce. I screwed up what little courage I had left and, together with the two detectives, we re-entered the shop.

‘This time we actually raised the floor but, again, found nothing suspicious.

‘It was midnight before I returned home. I felt beaten, racked by evil forebodings.

‘My wife, thoroughly frightened by all these happenings tried, for the third time, to convince me that the place was cursed, that it would bring bad luck, and I should move my shop elsewhere.

‘The appearance of the coffin she regarded with superstitious awe.

‘As for me, I have to admit that I found it all horribly oppressive. All through the night, I was pursued by nightmares in which countless coffins appeared. In my waking hours, I was distracted by melancholia. My heart ached constantly.

‘I hated the thought of abandoning the familiar surroundings in which I had traded so long.

‘Those of us whose business lies in the Commercial Centre can depend on regular trade there. Anyone would have to look long and hard and yet not find anything as well suited for that purpose.

‘There was a vacancy at the other end of the arcade, but it was too small for me and, besides, surrounded by smaller stalls that all but hid it from view. The rest of the Commercial Centre was occupied by well-established firms. It was unlikely any one of them would be available in time for the opening.

‘I decided to sit it out.

‘My old shop assistants flatly refused to continue working for me. I had to find new ones.

‘I found only two fellows brave enough to work for me, and they demanded double wages. Since I didn’t know them personally, I had to make enquiries about them.

‘One of them had worked a year for some major manufacturer, but had been dismissed for bring rude. His name was Simon Reshkin. The other was an Englishman, Smith Copton. He had worked for a Russian bank some time ago, but resigned in high dudgeon. A large sum of money had gone missing and he had objected to being searched. Quite a few employees had been searched and they’d not made a fuss over it. But this proud Englishman had taken umbrage. He had been held in high esteem by his superiors, who had tried to talk him into staying, but he left nevertheless.

‘Since then things had been hard for him, but he preferred to
eke out a living from the little money he had saved. Anything, not to work at a job in which he would be treated badly again.

‘He was particularly recommended by the director of the bank in which he had been employed.

‘The Englishman didn’t immediately agree to work for me.

‘It was only when I told him the whole story of the apparition, that he announced, with a grin, that he was drawn out of curiosity and a desire to earn his fare home.

‘The Great Nijni-Novgorod Fair opened.

‘We opened up in the morning and had just taken our places, when all three were forced to flee as though driven mad.

‘It was the smell.

‘Not just an ordinary sort of stink. This was a loathsome, acidic smell which caused our heads to spin and bile to rise in our throats.

‘It wasn’t that the smell was strong. Its effect was awful, so awful that we couldn’t stay inside the shop, nor even stand beside it in the arcade. It seemed to have penetrated every nook and cranny. It filled the air.

‘Customers approaching the shop or walking past it seemed to break out in some kind of paroxysm followed by headlong flight, holding on to their noses, cursing.

‘Our neighbours, reacting to the fuss, ran out of their shops and then, at a distance, yelled at us to lock our jinxed shop and get the hell out of there.

‘The fuss grew by the minute.

‘At the risk of passing out, I got to the door, slammed it and locked it shut.

‘The noise brought the police. The senior of them, when what had happened had been explained to him, lost his temper. “What’s going on here!” he shouted. “Everyone else is behaving normally but here, as if on purpose, there’s all these senseless goings-on.”

‘I tried to justify myself, but he refused to listen.

‘I unlocked the door for him, but before he could go in, he backed away as if scalded, holding his nose. “What are you up to?” he screamed at me. “What have you been sprinkling inside?”

‘But I could only tell him what I knew.

‘Both shop assistants confirmed my story and the police officer drew up a protocol.

‘To determine what the odour was, a chemist and a doctor were summoned, but the moment they poked their noses inside, they rushed out, as though driven mad.

‘Retreating some distance from the door, they stared at each other with bulging eyes, spat and finally announced they had never come across such a foul smell in either chemistry or medicine.

‘Neither of my assistants being prepared to enter the shop, it became necessary to call out the fire brigade. They smashed the windows leading out on to the street. When the air inside had cleared somewhat, they came in to determine the source of the foul odour. Even though the shop had been ventilated somewhat, they couldn’t stay long. Emerging, they said that the odour came from the outer facing of one of the counters. The counter was then smashed and the pieces thrown out. But there were horses outside. They began to breathe hoarsely and then took to headlong flight, dragging their carriages with them … followed by the curses of the coachmen.