by Alex Auswaks
Suddenly Holmes uttered a triumphant cry. ‘Have a look, Watson,’ he whispered and motioned for me to come near. I crawled up to him.
Holmes suddenly lifted the corner of the carpet by the head of the bed, ‘The first thing that struck me was that the corner leg of the bed was not pressing down on the carpet,’ he whispered.
I looked at the floor under the carpet and all the same noticed nothing.
‘You don’t see it?’ smiled Holmes.
‘Absolutely not,’ I replied.
‘And all the same, it is so simple.’ Holmes still smiled and said softly, ‘Look at the floor boards. In all the other places where we examined the floor, you noticed, of course, that the cracks between them had been filled with paint and where the paint cracked, dust and other dirt particles had collected. It’s different here. The cracks are not filled with paint and there is no dirt, which shows that these floorboards are not immoveable.’
Holmes produced a thin spike, stuck it into a floor board and gently raised it. The board shifted.
He moved it just a little and then replaced it. He then covered it with the carpet and moved the bed so that all four legs pressed down on it. ‘Now the entrance is sealed,’ he said, getting up. ‘The most important is done. There’s only trifles left to be attended to now. The criminal is on board, because he has nowhere to go and the sooner the ship moves, so much the better. Watson, let’s go to Mahomet-Sultan.’
We left the Emir’s quarters and went on deck.
IV
We found the Minister of the Court standing with the Emir and quietly conversing with him. We waited till he looked in our direction and Holmes gave him an imperceptible sign. He indicated with his eyes that he understood. He ended his conversation with the Emir and, accompanied by the interpreter, made his way to Holmes’s cabin. We followed.
‘The sooner the ship leaves, the better,’ Holmes said to him. ‘Rest assured, the thief will not escape.’
‘Really,’ exclaimed the Minister joyfully, when he heard this announcement from the interpreter.
‘Yes,’ said Holmes. ‘He is on board and, of course, won’t risk escaping as long as the ship is ringed by sentries.’
‘Oh! Oh! In that case I will inform His Highness at once!’ the Minister exclaimed through the interpreter and the two Bukharans ran out of the cabin.
The second whistle sounded a minute later. A few minutes later, the third whistle sounded, sailors rushed about the deck, the military band thundered and the ship began to move gracefully away from the wharf.
‘Now, then, my dear Watson, we have to become sailors,’ said Holmes, opening his travel case.
But first, before changing, Holmes went out of the cabin and, returning after a little while, said, ‘Splendid. Everything’s done. The interpreter has asked the ship’s captain to instruct the bosun to sign on two more sailors who will now appear before him. So, look lively, Watson, change and let’s go to meet our new chief. And to look younger, a new fair-haired wig for you, into which rub wood-oil instead of pomade.’
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.
V
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.
VI
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.
VII
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.
6
THE COMMERCIAL CENTRE MYSTERY
P. Nikitin
I
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.
II
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.
