The Secret Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

by June Thomson

  ‘As she fought me off and Vasilchenko struggled to pull me back by the arms, bellowing like a bull in Russian, I was left clutching in one hand a wig of blonde, curly hair which a moment before had adorned the head of the fair Rosa, revealing a short, military-style crop.

  ‘The effect on Vladimir Vasilchenko was instantaneous. With a great shout of “Spic!”, which I learnt later was the Russian for “spy”, he changed sides at once and joined me in attacking Rosa Zubatov, wrestling her to the ground where he held her in a bear-like embrace.

  ‘Our mingled cries and exclamations brought Dmitri and the others running and it took several moments of confused explanation in both Russian and English before they grasped the situation. Peter Tomazov, the shoemaker, who spoke a little English, was immediately dispatched to fetch Inspector Gudgeon. In the meantime, Dmitri had succeeded in rescuing Rosa Zubatov from Vladimir’s clutches and had placed her on a chair where she sat, silent and defiant, while Vladimir went on haranguing both her and the assembled company, Dmitri translating for my benefit.

  ‘Rosa Zubatov was, it seemed, Ilyich Rodzyanko, a member of the Tzarist secret police who had been sent to spy on Vladimir Vasilchenko which was not his real name either. He was, in fact, Boris Golenski, the former editor of a Nihilist periodical, calling itself The People’s Hammer, which urged its readers to bring about the violent overthrow of the Tzar. Arrested for sedition, he had later escaped from the Peter and Paul fortress in St Petersburg where Ilyich Rodzyanko had been one of the Okchrana agents who had questioned him during his imprisonment which was how he had recognised her, or rather him, once the wig had been removed. Rodzyanko had been acting in disguise as an agent provocateur, his purpose being to persuade Vladimir to talk about his revolutionary activities during their late-night political discussions round the fire, hoping to trap him into naming some of his accomplices.

  ‘What made Vladimir particularly furious was the fact that, since coming to England, he had abandoned his Nihilist principles as being far too dangerous and was attempting to dissociate himself from his past.

  ‘“Then what,” I inquired, “were the papers which he handed to the printer in Lukin Street?”

  ‘When Dmitri translated my question, Vladimir looked most shame-faced.

  ‘They were, he explained, a love story which he was hoping to sell to a small publishing firm which produced a monthly periodical, completely non-political in its aims, for the Russian female émigrés in the East End of London. It was by this means that he earned his living, an employment which, for obvious reasons, he was anxious to keep secret from his fellow-lodgers. This accounted for the half-sovereign he had paid over in the eating-house. Incidentally, Watson, he was using the rather fanciful nom de plume of Princess Tatyana Ivanovna, thus adding yet another false identity to the many which bedevilled the case.

  ‘Inspector Gudgeon arrived shortly afterwards with a uniformed sergeant and some constables. Had he not been such a dull-witted dog of a fellow and still stubbornly convinced that Anna Poltava’s murder was the work of the Mason gang, I might have felt sorry for him for he was faced by several transformations which would not have disgraced a farce in which, in the final scene, disguises are thrown off and true identities revealed. Not only was I not a deaf-mute Russian peasant but the attractive Miss Rosa Zubatov, towards whom I suspected Gudgeon’s interest had strayed during his investigation, had been unmasked as Ilyich Rodzyanko, an Okchrana male secret agent. Even so, when faced with the truth, he took a great deal of persuading.

  ‘“But you can speak English!” he protested to me on more than one occasion.

  ‘“Of course I can,” I replied. “My name is Sherlock Holmes and I am a private consulting detective, called in by Count Nicholai Plekhanovitch to investigate Anna Poltava’s murder.”

  ‘On the matter of Rosa Zubatov’s, alias Ilyich Rodzyanko’s, identity, he was even more nonplussed and it was not until her, or rather his, room was searched and the purse belonging to Anna Poltava was found, together with a long black cloak and a broad-brimmed hat, as well as a false beard and a set of picklocks, that he was finally convinced. Rodzyanko was then arrested and taken off to Commercial Road police station in handcuffs.

  ‘I heard later that the market-porter, Moffat, was sent for and identified Rodzyanko, dressed in this disguise, as the man he had seen lurking at the alley entrance.

  ‘Faced with this incontrovertible evidence, Rodzyanko then confessed to the murder of Anna Poltava. She, too, it seemed had, like me, become suspicious of Rosa Zubatov or rather Rodzyanko as I shall now call him to save further confusion, and had searched his room in his absence, disturbing his papers and thus arousing his suspicion. As only Anna Poltava possessed keys to all the rooms in the house, it was clear to him who had carried out the search. Fearful that the old woman would betray him, Rodzyanko decided to murder her in the manner I have already described, first picking the lock on her door and, having smothered her and taken her purse to make it appear a robbery, then faked the signs of a forced entry on the outer frame of the window. His purpose in waiting in the alleyway for a passer-by to observe him was to convince the police, as well as the inhabitants of the house, that the murder was the work of a bearded outsider.

  ‘Thus the murder of the old Russian woman was satisfactorily solved.

  ‘However, there remained a final mystery.

  ‘You may be wondering, Watson, who, if anyone, was the Odessa assassin suspected of taking refuge in the Stanley Street household. Would you care to hazard a guess at that person’s identity?’

  ‘Oh, really Holmes!’ I protested. ‘I cannot imagine. There were a great many of them and Russian names are difficult to remember.’

  ‘This one is not. Go on, my dear fellow. Pray indulge me.’

  ‘Very well then,’ said I, amused by the game. ‘Whom shall I choose? Then let it be the shoemaker with the sick wife.’

  Holmes laughed out loud with pleasure.

  ‘You are wrong, my old friend. It was none other than Olga Leskova.’

  ‘Olga? The fat woman who made you eat up your pancakes?’

  ‘The very one! Can you imagine a more unlikely Nihilist? In the general confusion which followed my unmasking of Rodzyanko, no one noticed that she had quietly packed her bags and made her departure, fearful no doubt that her own identity would be the next uncovered. I learnt later from Count Nicholai that inquiries showed that she had taken passage to America where she disappeared from sight among the teeming millions of other foreign exiles. She is probably at this very moment running an eating-house in Kansas City or a Russian restaurant in the Bronx.

  ‘And now, my dear Watson, if you care to assist me in packing up my trunk, I shall return it to my bedroom.’

  ‘But, Holmes, what about the other papers?’ I exclaimed, indicating the piles of documents which still stood about the room.

  ‘Oh, there is no time to deal with those now,’ Holmes declared airily. ‘The maid will be coming at any moment to lay the table for dinner. Surely you do not expect her to do so with the contents of the trunk spread across the carpet?’

  ‘But, Holmes …!’

  My protests were to no avail. Holmes insisted and together we bundled up the documents, including the packet containing the false identity papers, the photograph and the ikon, and returned them to the trunk.

  Although several months were to pass before Holmes finally found the time to clear the room of all his other records, I had at least the consolation of having heard from his lips the curious case of the old Russian woman.* even though I shall not be permitted to publish an account of it within the lifetime of Count Nicholai Plekhanovitch and his son, Sergei, who still continue their work among the Russian exiles and who wish to protect the interests of their fellow-countrymen.

  * If my late uncle’s theory regarding the precise date of Dr John H. Watson’s marriage is correct, then this event would have taken place in the winter of 1887/8. (Aubrey B. Watson)

  * Mr Sh
erlock Holmes gave Dr John H. Watson accounts of two cases he had investigated prior to their meeting. One was ‘The Adventure of the “Gloria Scott”’, the first he undertook, the other ‘The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual’. (Dr John F. Watson)

  * This was Victor Trevor through whom Mr Sherlock Holmes became involved in the case of the ‘Gloria Scott’. (Dr John F. Watson)

  † In addition to fencing, Mr Sherlock Holmes was also skilled at baritsu, a form of Japanese self-defence, boxing, and in the use of the singlestick. Vide ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’, ‘The Adventure of the “Gloria Scott”’ and ‘A Study in Scarlet’. (Dr John F. Watson).

  * In ‘The Adventure of the Three Garridebs’, Mr Sherlock Holmes criticises Inspector Lestrade and his colleagues for a ‘want of imaginative intuition’. (Dr John F. Watson)

  * Tzar Alexander II was succeeded by his son, Tzar Nicholas II, who was murdered together with his family by the Bolsheviks in 1917. (Dr John F. Watson)

  † Vera Zasulich (1849–1919), who was acquitted of the attempted murder of General Trepov, was a founding member of the first Russian Marxist organization, the Liberation of Labour. She was, however, opposed to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. (Dr John F. Watson)

  * Count Nicholai Plekhanovitch was correct in his fears. The most serious incidents involving émigrés were the Houndsditch murders of three policemen in December 1910, followed by the siege of a house in Sidney Street to which the Scots Guards were called out and which the then Mr Winston Churchill attended as Home Secretary. (Dr John F. Watson)

  * Mr Sherlock Holmes had French connections, his grandmother being the sister of the French artist, Vernet. As he disguised himself as a French workman during his investigation into the disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax, it may be assumed he spoke French. (Dr John F. Watson)

  * The ‘New Woman’ concept was part of the Nihilist ‘New People’ movement, mostly favoured by young students. While the ‘New Women’ wore short hair, the ‘New Men’ wore theirs long. Blue-tinted spectacles, high boots and relaxed manners were adopted by both sexes. (Dr John F. Watson)

  * In The Sign of Four’, Mr Sherlock Holmes remarks that the science of detection can only be learnt through ‘long and patient study’. (Dr John F. Watson)

  * Mr Sherlock Holmes refers to this case together with several others in ‘The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual’. (Dr John F. Watson)

  THE CASE OF THE CAMBERWELL POISONING

  Of all the investigations with which it was my privilege to be associated over the years of my friendship with Sherlock Holmes, few began with such dramatic abruptness as the one we were later to refer to as the case of the Camberwell poisoning.

  It was, I recall, a little after eleven o’ clock one evening in the spring of ’87.* As my wife was away for a few days visiting a relative in Sussex,† I had called on Holmes earlier, having not seen him for several weeks, and, as the hours slipped by, we fell to reminiscing companionably over past cases, as we sat by the fire, in particular the theft of the Mayor of Bournemouth’s regalia and the mysterious haunting of the Hon. Mrs Stukely Wodehouse.

  Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle drawing up in the street outside, followed soon afterwards by an urgent ringing at the front door bell.

  ‘A client?’ Holmes inquired, raising his eyebrows. ‘I can think of no other reason for anyone to call at this time of night.’

  Rather than allow Mrs Hudson or the maid to be disturbed, Holmes himself went downstairs to answer the summons, returning with a fair-haired, snub-nosed young man of about three and twenty, respectably dressed but without a topcoat, although the evening was chilly, and in a state of considerable agitation, his pleasant, rather nondescript countenance convulsed with an expression of despair.

  When Holmes invited him to sit by the fire, he sank into the chair with a groan and covered his face with his hands.

  After exchanging a glance with me over the top of his bowed head, Holmes opened the interview.

  ‘I perceive,’ said he, crossing his legs and leaning back comfortably in his own chair, ‘that you are employed in an office, that you are a keen amateur cricketer, that you left home in great haste and that, although you arrived here by cab, the first part of your journey was conducted on foot.’

  The words had their desired effect for the young man sat up instantly and regarded my old friend with great astonishment.

  ‘You are quite right, Mr Holmes, although how the deuce you know all this is beyond me. I have heard of your reputation which is why I am here, but I never knew you had the gift of clairvoyance.’

  ‘Not clairvoyance, my dear sir; simply observation. For example, you are wearing on your lapel a Camberwell Cricket Club badge with the letters CCC on a blue shield, easily recognizable to someone like myself who has made a study of such insignia. As for your haste in coming here and for making the first part of your journey on foot, the absence of a topcoat and the state of your boots give that away. There is fresh mud upon the soles.’

  ‘Then how do you know I work in an office?’ the young man inquired, looking more cheerful. ‘I don’t carry that on my lapel or my boots.’

  Holmes laughed out loud.

  ‘No, indeed! But you do on the middle finger of your right hand where I see there is a small callosity just above the first joint where a pen has constantly rubbed while your attire, although dishevelled, shows nothing of the bohemianism of the artist. Now come, sir, I have given away some of my professional methods. Will you now do me the courtesy of telling me who you are and what business has brought you here at this late hour? It is evidently a matter of some urgency which could not wait until the morning.’

  The young man was immediately plunged once more into the depths.

  ‘Urgent! I should think it is, Mr Holmes. I have been accused of murder although I swear I am innocent …!’

  ‘Pray, sir, let us approach the case from the beginning,’ Holmes interrupted with a touch of asperity. ‘Facts first, if you please. The protestations may come later. What is your name?’

  Looking abashed, our young visitor made an effort to control his feelings.

  ‘My name is Charles Perrott, Charlie to my friends, and I work as a clerk at Snellings and Broadbent, the stockbroker’s in Cornhill. As both my parents died when I was young, I was brought up by my maternal uncle, Albert Rushton, and his late wife, my Aunt Vera, who were very good to me, took me into their own home and treated me like a son.

  ‘Earlier today, when I returned from the office to my diggings, I found a message from my uncle, asking me to drop by at his house in Camberwell this evening, as he had an urgent matter to discuss with me. I called at about six o’ clock and was invited into the study for a glass of sherry while my uncle explained to me that only that morning he had heard that his younger brother had died in Australia, leaving no family, and that consequently, he had altered his will, making me his sole heir. Under the terms of his old will, his brother would have been the main beneficiary. I ought to explain, Mr Holmes, that, before his retirement, my uncle was a successful wholesale greengrocer with a business at Covent Garden and was quite wealthy.

  ‘I must confess that, while I was distressed for my uncle’s sake over the death of his brother – also an uncle although I had never known him as he had emigrated before I was born – I couldn’t help feeling pleased at the news that I would inherit the largest portion of my Uncle Bert’s estate which I knew amounted to as much as fifteen thousand pounds, not to mention the house and its contents. He had never made any secret of it and often talked openly about his will, even in front of the servants.

  ‘Uncle Bert invited me to stay to dinner but I had to turn him down as I’d promised some friends I’d have supper with them and a game or two of billiards afterwards.

  ‘I got back to my lodgings soon after half past ten and was getting ready for bed when there came a loud knocking on the front door and my landlady showed two men up to my room. They were police office
rs, Mr Holmes, come to tell me that my uncle was dead and they were arresting me on suspicion of murdering him!’

  ‘Who were these officers?’ Holmes asked.

  ‘An Inspector Needham and a Sergeant Bullifont from the station in Camberwell Green.’

  ‘Did either of these officers tell you how your uncle died or what evidence they had against you?’

  ‘No, not a word, Mr Holmes. Inspector Needham handed me my jacket after the sergeant had searched the pockets and told me to put it on. I was in such a state of shock, what with the news of Uncle Bert’s death, not to mention the accusation of murder, that I hardly knew what I was doing. It was while I was fastening up my jacket that the sergeant found something in the pocket of my topcoat. As far as I could see, it was nothing more than a scrap of paper, all crumpled up, but it seemed to excite the inspector and his sergeant. After they had examined it, Inspector Needham said, “Well, that’s conclusive evidence, if ever I saw any,” and the sergeant started to take a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket. It was then I decided to make a bolt for it.

  ‘The bottom sash of the window was open to air the room. I’d smoked a cigar when I’d first got back to my lodgings and my landlady objects to the smell of tobacco smoke in the house. I knew the coal-shed roof was just below, so I made a dive round the end of the bed, jumped out of the window and made off across the garden. There’s a back gate that opens into an alley-way. I ran down there, cut across some waste-ground and eventually came out in Coldharbour Lane where I hailed a cab. I’d heard of you, sir. The chief accountant at Snellings and Broadbent mentioned your name in connection with the Thisby fraud case. That’s why I came to you. If anyone can prove my innocence, it’s you, Mr Holmes!’

  Holmes, who had listened to this account with the deepest attention, rose abruptly from his chair and took several turns up and down the room, plunged deep in thought, while Charlie Perrott watched him anxiously from his seat by the fire.