by Alex Auswaks
‘As much as necessary,’ Holmes said gravely. ‘If I don’t have enough of my own, there’s a friend.’
Bakhtadian nodded approvingly.
Later, Holmes was to tell me that all the time Bakhtadian suspected that Holmes and I were the heads of a superbly organized gang with a large capital and occupying ourselves with buying and selling stolen goods.
‘Do you want to do business, then say so,’ said Bakhtadian.
‘Of course, I do,’ said Holmes.
‘Then do so! I can deliver all the goods you want.’
‘From where?’ asked Holmes.
‘They’re on offer from everywhere. From here and from Missova, from Innokentievsk, from Manchuria, Baikal, well, from every possible railway station.’
‘What’s on offer?’
‘All sorts of goods: beds, underwear, perfumery, fabrics, sugar, candles, medicines, instruments, typewriters, printing machinery.’
‘Expensive?’ asked Holmes.
Bakdtadian’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Holmes, ‘Are you familiar with factory prices?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ answered Holmes.
‘How much of a discount on factory prices do you expect?’
‘Say, seventy per cent,’ said Holmes.
‘You’re out of your mind,’ exclaimed Bakhtadian.
‘No, I’m not,’ said Holmes coldly.
‘Don’t I have to make something?’
‘You do,’ Holmes agreed.
‘Then what’s in it for me?’
‘You’ll get something from me,’ said Holmes.
‘How much?’
‘Ten per cent,’ said Holmes.
Bakhtadian thought it over, ‘No, they won’t let it go so cheap,’ he said at last. ‘Pharmaceutical goods, marked underwear, boots, topographical and surgical instruments – you can have a discount of eighty per cent, but when it comes to the other stuff, up to forty per cent and with my ten per cent, that’ll make it fifty per cent.’
‘Blankets?’
‘As many as you want, but no more than fifty per cent discount. The Chinese are very eager to buy them.’
‘Well, all right … I’ll think about it. It’s all far too much,’ Holmes said lazily.
‘Enough of this haggling! What’s your price?’ Bakhtadian began to insist. ‘Now, then, what sort of a discount? Tell you what, with my cut, average forty-five per cent. How about it?’
‘No, no good,’ said Holmes. ‘The goods you said they’d let go cheap, seventy-five per cent and forty for the rest. For you, without exception, ten per cent from me. If not, there’s nothing more to be said.’
The haggling went on for an hour. But no matter how Bakhtadian argued, no matter how often he walked off for show, Holmes remained adamant. Not one single per cent more.
‘All right, have it your way,’ exclaimed Bakhtadian at last. ‘But, at least, give me a small advance so I can start.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Holmes coldly. ‘After all, if you can make off with a small advance, you’ll miss out on the greater amount. Here’s three hundred.’ He took three hundred out of his wallet and handed them over.
Bakhtadian cheered up. Evidently, there were prospects for money to be made in the deal. He called the shop assistant, gave him twenty-five roubles and told him to get three bottles of champagne. The drinking spree lasted well beyond midnight.
*
IX
The whole of the following day, Sherlock Holmes sent off telegrams in all directions. Evidently, these telegrams had the desired effect. A day later and the replies rained on us, but they were as long as letters. Reading them, Holmes smiled and kept on shaking his head.
‘What’s happening?’ I asked him once.
‘See for yourself,’ he answered and handed me a stack of telegrams.
I began to read them. They were fairly lengthy and came from major companies and certain hospitals, informing us of the loss of furs and other goods, descriptions, seals and stamps marking them, the packaging, numbering on invoices and other details.
Judging from these telegrams, there wasn’t a single major firm in Eastern Siberia that hadn’t been robbed. The total worth of the stolen goods exceeded three hundred thousand roubles.
Holmes selected the information he needed and meticulously wrote it down in his notebook.
‘Now, then, my dear Watson, half the task is done. All that’s left is to identify the sellers at source and find the warehouses where the stolen goods are kept. Watson, could you possibly follow Bakhtadian, who seems to have direct contact with the thieves.’
‘With pleasure,’ I agreed.
‘In that case, you’ll have to look like an ordinary workman and be ready for some tiring work. He’s coming to see me today, but by then you’ll have your make-up on. Just don’t go near him.’
Saying this, he put on his hat and promised to return in a few minutes, which he did.
‘There you are, I’ve got Bakhtadian’s address,’ he said cheerfully. ‘It appears he lives right here, at the edge of this little village, but he is seldom home. In the meantime, Watson, let’s have a bite and then we’ll get to work.’
We ate cold veal, roast beef and ham, drank them down with a decent amount of Lafitte, and then Holmes and I set about transforming my appearance. My new costume consisted of well-greased high boots, baggy striped old trousers, a canvas smock and a peaked cap. A few brush strokes on my face from Holmes’s skilled hand and I became completely unrecognizable. I completed the change of clothes, went into the shop and sat on a sack of salt in a dark corner.
At the same time, Holmes also changed into the same sort of clothes that I was wearing, but hid them under an eastern type robe called a khalat.
Bakhtadian soon arrived.
He paid no attention to me but addressed Holmes as soon as he came in. ‘Well, you should be getting about five chests today. The cargo will be fairly varied, because there’s been no time to sort out the stuff. They go for anything near at hand. When they bring them, we’ll see what’s inside.’
‘All right,’ said Holmes. ‘How late will they be delivered? After all, I have to prepare space for them.’
‘Not before three o’clock in the morning,’ said Bakhtadian. ‘I’ll be here myself by then.’
‘All right! All right!’ said Holmes.
‘And now, I’m busy!’
‘Off to where you have to go. I’m not detaining you,’ said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders.
Bakhtadian went off.
Darkness was falling and half a minute later his silhouette was already difficult to make out as he went in the direction of the station.
‘Quick! Go after him! Don’t let him out of your sight!’ Holmes shouted as he picked up his make-up box. I hurried out after Bakhtadian while Holmes, with the speed of lightning, was already working on his own face.
I followed Bakhtadian to the station. Without letting him out of my sight, I squatted down on the ground by the fence.
A lanky fellow came up. He looked as if a barber had upended a bowl on his head and cut his black hair from below it. His hands, face and clothes were so stained with coal you could hardly make out his short, black, bristly moustache. He squatted down beside me, ‘How long before the next train to Manchuria, man?’ he asked.
‘The devil alone knows,’ I answered.
‘So—’ he gave a melancholy drawl.
He sat beside me for a while, then turned towards me, and clapping me on the shoulder in a friendly way said, ‘Not too perceptive are you, my dear Watson!’
Now I recognized the familiar voice. I glanced at him, and his filthy appearance caused me to break out laughing.
‘Shhh,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t let’s bring attention to ourselves.’
At this time the depot manager went up to Bakhtadian, pacing up and down the platform, took him aside and very gravely and very carefully began to explain something to him. A third man, who looked like a foreman, joined them. While they
spoke, a goods train came into the station.
The depot manager walked away slowly from them towards the stationmaster who came out of his office on the platform. The two of them together walked alongside the train, stopping at the fifth carriage from the rear. I saw the stationmaster give a nearly imperceptible nod at this carriage.
It was at this moment that Bakhtadian and his companion, both of whom had been watching the other two from a distance, jumped on the platform at the end of a carriage.
‘Let’s follow where they are going, Watson,’ said Holmes. ‘They are being very circumspect. I am sure it is the fifth carriage from the rear that the stationmaster indicated to Bakhtadian. We’ll have to make sure nobody sees us. First, the other side of the train and then let’s get on one of the empty platforms at the rear end of a carriage.’
We did so. We went around the train and, on the other side, began to walk beside it.
Now the third departure signal rang at last. The train began to get under way. We picked an empty platform at the end of a carriage and jumped on it as the train moved.
X
As soon as the train began to slow down before the next station, we jumped off and hid under the carriage of a train standing on the adjoining track. No sooner had we concealed ourselves when we saw the figure of Bakhtadian and his travelling companion. They marched quickly past us, stopped just before the fifth carriage from the back and, like us, hid on the track underneath the train. But the moment the third signal for departure sounded and the train began to move, both jumped on the platform of the fifth carriage. We, too, jumped up to take our former place on the platform. There were four carriages between us.
The train had moved little more than half a mile and the steep cliffs reappeared to our right, when the darkness descended, so that we couldn’t even see the telegraph poles along the route. We went through tunnel after tunnel. Going through them, the din was so deafening that we couldn’t hear anyone or anything no matter how we strained our ears.
But now the train began to climb uphill. The train slowed down and at the next tunnel was climbing at a crawl. But even here, despite the slow progress, the din was so great that it was impossible to hear any extraneous sounds.
As soon as we emerged from the tunnel, Holmes said to me, ‘Listen, my dear Watson, at the very first stop, get off and try to get home as soon as possible. You should be able to get back by three o’clock to accept the delivery. When Bakhtadian arrives with the goods, tell him that, because of a lucrative deal, I’m away for a day or two. Tell him you can’t unwrap and evaluate the goods and if he doesn’t trust you, he can take the chests away till I return.’
‘What about you, Holmes?’ I asked.
‘I’ll be back in approximately a day, perhaps even earlier or later, depending on the circumstances,’ he said. ‘In any case, watch carefully everything going on around you.’
He gave me certain instructions and, when the train entered the station, he got off. I got off, too, but did not see him. I was lucky! The return train was standing at the station. Since it was night, nobody intercepted me and I was able to find myself a platform on a freight train. At a quarter past two I was already home.
XI
At about half past three there was a knock on the door. It was Bakhtadian with two others, bringing four chests of goods. He expressed great surprise that Holmes, whom he knew as Vedrin, wasn’t home. Obviously, he wanted to get rid of the goods as soon as possible, collect his money and then he could consider himself on the sidelines. But there was nothing to be done. He didn’t feel like taking the goods back, so he said that he’d be back in two days.
I spent all the next day alone, selling one or two trifles to an occasional customer. Holmes appeared at about nine o’clock in the evening. He threw off his working-man’s clothes, washed the make-up off his face and threw himself hungrily at food. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t take a few sandwiches along with me. I had to work on an empty stomach all day,’ he complained.
The fixed, preoccupied stare probably meant the day’s trek had not been in vain. He cast a passing glance at the newly delivered chests saying, ‘Bakhtadian was here! He came at about half-past three in the night accompanied by two labourers. There was a white stain on his right shoulder.’
I remembered that Bakhtadian did, in fact, have such a stain and it was, indeed, on his right shoulder. ‘You saw him?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but much earlier.’
‘And most likely you have found out something of great importance,’ I prompted.
‘Yes, I can certainly boast of that,’ Holmes said cheerfully. He lit a cigar, stretched out his legs and began to speak, ‘Of course, Watson, you remember the moment when we parted. As soon as the train stopped, I ran to the fifth carriage from the rear, but neither Bakhtadian nor his companion was there. I looked everywhere, inside every nook and cranny, but it was a waste of time. There was no doubt in my mind they’d jumped off while the train was in motion. But when? It had to be when the train slowed down and that could only be when it was going uphill. There was only one steep climb before that station when the train really slowed down.’
‘That was just before we got to the long tunnel,’ I interrupted. ‘I think the whole tunnel was on a steep incline.’
‘Quite right, my dear Watson. You are to be commended for your powers of observation,’ said Holmes. ‘And so I had to assume that they’d both jumped off either before we got to the tunnel or inside it. If so, the question arises, why? And then another question, why did they move from the first carriage to the platform of the fifth, the very one on which the stationmaster and depot manager focused their attention. My first instinct was to throw myself headlong into the tunnel but, instead, I rode as far as the next railway shunting. To examine the carriage while the train was standing at the station was both inconvenient and dangerous. As soon as the train moved, I jumped on the platform which Bakhtadian and his companion had occupied. The train moved out of the station and, as soon as we were beyond the last station semaphore, I began to examine the sides of the carriage with the aid of a pocket torch. The first thing I noticed was that there were chinks in the panelling and these chinks were not filled with paint. It was as if the panelling wasn’t painted after it had been installed, but boards had first been painted and then used for panelling. In one of those panels I found a little hollow. It was as if someone had hammered in a thick nail but, before hammering it all the way through, it had been pulled out.
‘I took out a steel pin I carried with me, inserted it in the hollow and jiggled it from side to side. Nothing happened. But when I jiggled it up and down, it slid deeper in without resistance. Now it became possible to remove the entire panelling and then four more, creating a wide gap.’
‘This is most intriguing,’ I exclaimed.
‘Yes.’ Holmes nodded. ‘When I went into the carriage, it was half empty. There were only a few chests left, which the thieves hadn’t the time to throw out before the train reached the top of the incline. I replaced the panelling carefully and, as we were going up another incline, I jumped off the train. All the way back I ran at full speed. At last I got back to the station and walked beyond. I had marked the tunnel, which was a good eight miles from the station. There were two more tunnels along the way and I walked through them without hindrance, although I came across watchmen at their entrances. But no sooner did I come to the tunnel I was aiming for than I was intercepted by a watchman, “Where d’you think you’re going!” he yelled. “Don’t you know tunnels are out of bounds!” I argued and swore, but to no avail. He wouldn’t let me through. I had to resort to cunning. I pretended to go round and hid behind a bush on a high rock. From here I had a clear view of the watchman. As soon as I saw him go inside his booth, I threw myself down and darted into the tunnel. It was a long tunnel, I thought, a good half mile and longer.’
Sherlock Holmes paused, drank a little red wine and went on, ‘I moved forward carefully, listening for the slightest sound, s
hining my torch on the walls and examining the sides of the tunnel carefully. Some three hundred yards into the tunnel, I came across a wagon that had been emptied and leaned up against the wall inside an archway. I scrutinized every stone of the tunnel at this point. And then I saw that four stones were not at one with the rest of the wall. They were cemented together. Moreover, they were not rock, but slabs cemented together. The four together were seven feet square. Undoubtedly, an artificial entrance way but, try as I might, I couldn’t find how to get it to open. Today, my dear Watson, we’ll summon Bakhtadian, settle up with him for the delivery, and go there together.’
‘Do you suspect that’s the hiding place for stolen goods?’
‘Yes, at least for this route. Every railroad route has its own storage facilities,’ answered Holmes.
We agreed on when we’d be going and lay down to sleep. Holmes slept for a couple of hours and then, having dressed in his ordinary clothes, vanished. He was back half an hour later with Bakhtadian in tow.
The three of us set to sorting out the goods Bakhtadian had delivered. The chests contained boots marked army quartermaster issue and underwear for junior ranks. Holmes assigned everything the exact factory prices and this, and the agreed percentage, was paid to Bakhtadian.
Bakhtadian promised to deliver another lot the same night, but not before four o’clock, and left. We changed swiftly into our previous workmen’s clothes and sped to the station.
XII
We carried dark cloaks with us. The station was empty. The next train was due to leave in two hours and a quarter. We decided not to waste that much time, so we returned.
First we went to where Bakhtadian lived. But it was dark there, too, so we walked up and down the streets of the little village. It was in total darkness. The little village slept the sleep of the dead. At its edge we were near the Red Cross storehouse and were about to turn back, when we suddenly heard voices.
‘It’s Bakhtadian,’ Holmes whispered. ‘For heaven’s sake, take care. Follow me!’
