Sherlock Holmes and The Shadows of St Petersburg

by Daniel D Victor

  On closer inspection I realized I recognized two of them. The unshaven one in a short jacket and flat hat turned out to be Roderick Cheek; his friend William Arbuthnot, better equipped for the rain in a long mac and bowler, stood by his side. At a respectful distance from the burial site two gravediggers leaned upon the wooden handles of their upright shovels.

  “If I had to guess,” offered Lestrade, “I would say that group of four were clients of the pawnbroker.”

  “I should imagine so,” I responded, without revealing what I already knew about two of them.

  After the caskets had been lowered into the ground, the mourners formed a short queue by the two graves and one by one wielded the gravediggers’ shovels to deposit soil atop the lids. The children filled their fists with dirt and tossed their handfuls into each grave. The moist dirt splattered loudly as it struck the wood.

  “A moment,” Lestrade said. With the ceremony completed, there remained no need to hide our presence, and so the policeman stepped from behind the trees and made his way across the soggy grounds to the burial site. Members of the family frowned upon seeing him, but quickly lost interest when it became clear he was heading past the canopy and towards the strangers. He spoke to all four, each nodding in turn.

  “Clients paying their respects,” said Lestrade after returning to our spot among the beeches. “I’ve arranged for them to come to my office tomorrow morning to claim any items of theirs that hadn’t been stolen. You’re invited to join us, Doctor. One never knows what someone might say. A slip up, you know.”

  Lestrade had offered a similar reason for attending the funeral, and nothing seemed to have come from it. Yet I agreed to the meeting as we trudged back across the wet lawn to the police van. A few moments later, the rain picked up again, but we had the shelter of the four-wheeler for protection on the long ride back to Baker Street.

  * * *

  The lingering black clouds did not prevent my drive to Scotland Yard the following morning, and I entered Lestrade’s office at precisely 11.00. It was the time he had arranged with Roderick Cheek the previous day to collect whatever of Cheek’s pledges might not have been stolen from the pawnbroker. Appointments with the other clients to whom Lestrade had spoken were set at half-hour intervals thereafter. Not surprisingly, Cheek was late; and I took the opportunity to inform Lestrade of my previous meeting with the eccentric young man and his friend William Arbuthnot.

  “Now?” he cried out. “You’re telling me about them only now? Not yesterday at the funeral before I spoke to the two of them?”

  He had a point, of course. “I was hoping to report all this to Holmes first and let him present the news. It was his Irregulars who discovered Cheek’s digs, you see.”

  “His Irregulars? You mean those little brats Holmes puts to work? They actually found where this Roderick Cheek lives?”

  “Indeed. But, you see, it was for an entirely different investigation. We were searching for a missing person. Cheek’s sister came to Baker Street to ask Holmes to help her find her brother who had gone missing. Holmes agreed and put the boys on the scent. His ‘East End Associates,’ he calls them.”

  Lestrade emitted a derisive snort.

  Undaunted, I continued my laboured explanation. “When I learned about Cheek’s dealings with Gottfried - not to mention Cheek’s familiarity with Dostoevsky’s novel - I suspected he might somehow be related to the current murders. His friend Arbuthnot as well.”

  “And you never thought to let the Yard in on your discoveries, Doctor?” asked Lestrade with the shake of his head. “I could understand Mr Holmes withholding such information, but I’ve always considered you to be much more sensible. Oh, your friend, Sherlock Holmes, has helped us on occasion, but always with a show of superiority. You, on the other hand-”

  A weak knock on the door interrupted whatever compliment I might have anticipated.

  “Enter!” commanded Lestrade, very much the superintendent of his tiny portion of the Metropolitan Police Headquarters.

  Announcing his arrival with a cough, a bedraggled Roderick Cheek meandered into the office. William Arbuthnot, in a more appropriately appointed dark suit and waistcoat, trailed behind.

  It was actually to the latter that Lestrade directed his first question. “Here, then, Mr Arbuthnot. You told me yesterday at the cemetery that you had done no business with the pawnbroker. Why have you come round?”

  Arbuthnot draped an arm round Cheek’s shoulder. “Moral support for my mate.”

  “Ah, Dr Watson,” said Cheek, his rheumy eyes brightening when he recognised me, “how fitting that you are here as well. Since you are so careful a reader of Crime and Punishment, you should be pleased to learn that I’ve come to recover the only pledge of mine old Gottfried would still have had - my father’s watch.”

  Before I could utter the words, Cheek announced them himself: “‘Just like Raskolnikov.’ Remember that he had left his father’s watch with the old woman whose head he would soon be splitting open?” And Cheek slammed the edge of his right hand into the centre of his open left palm to emphasise the point. His high-pitched laugh followed the dramatic gesture.

  Narrowing his eyes as he tried to interpret the meaning of this strange performance, Lestrade indicated for the two men to sit down.

  “On the other hand,” Cheek went right on as he sat, “unlike Raskolnikov, on my walk here” - and he held up his fingers to tick off each of the following points - “I saw no woman leaping into the Thames, no young girl being interfered with by a cold-hearted rake, and no drunken fool being run down by carriage horses. Oh, and before you ask, I also have had no dreams of some poor nag being beaten to death by its owner.” Turning to Arbuthnot for approval of his wit, Cheek was rewarded with a broad grin.

  I sat there with wide eyes. Cheek had just listed the most distinctive events that confront Raskolnikov in the early sections of Crime and Punishment. In the process, he had left me with no parallels about which to inquire.

  Lestrade cleared his throat. “Tell me about this watch, then. What does it look like?”

  “A silver hunter. Opens from both sides. One side is the watch face; the other contains a small portrait of my sister Priscilla. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding it, Inspector. Gottfried wrote the name of the client on the paper in which he wrapped each pledge.”

  Raskolnikov’s pawnbroker had done the same. Nonetheless, Lestrade made a show of rummaging through a desk drawer. Perhaps he was providing additional opportunity to allow Cheek to incriminate himself. “Describe the chain, if you please,” said Lestrade looking up.

  Roderick Cheek’s face broke into a broad grin. “You’re the very devil, Inspector. Not only should the watch be wrapped in a paper with my name on it, but also - as I am sure you are aware - the watch has no chain. I pledged its steel chain to another pawnbroker a few months ago.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Lestrade. His chicanery unmasked, he magically “discovered” the watch in question and handed it to the young man. Cheek opened both covers to be certain all was intact. Once satisfied, he signed the receipt Lestrade presented to him. The pen made a scratching sound as he wrote.

  “Anything else you want to ask me?” said Cheek when he handed back the paper.

  The Inspector shook his head. “That’s all for now. Thanks to Dr Watson, we know where to find you.”

  Cheek eyed me suspiciously as Arbuthnot rose and headed for the door. Cheek was about to follow him out, but turned back to Lestrade and tugged at his forelock, a poor servant paying his respect. “Perhaps we’ll see each other on Sunday,” he added, and then both men were gone.

  “Sunday?” I asked.

  “Big gathering planned for Trafalgar Square,” explained Lestrade. “I should judge that all the foreign malcontents from the East End will be on hand to air their grievances. I don’t doubt that this Cheek fe
llow will be there. Lucky not to get his skull split open. But then our boys restrain themselves. No axes allowed.” He chuckled to himself at his little joke.

  I remained in Lestrade’s office for the next hour to hear what Gottfried’s other two clients, the men Lestrade had cornered at the funeral, had to say; but having strong alibis for the night of the murder, they were allowed to collect their pledges and leave without any further ado.

  Chapter Seven: St Petersburg

  As it turned out, Sherlock Holmes had chosen a tumultuous time to be gone from London. On Sunday, 13 November, two days after Roderick Cheek’s performance at Scotland Yard, an epic battle did indeed erupt in Trafalgar Square. Mounted members of the Metropolitan police along with hundreds of military troops waded into a raging sea of unemployed protesters.

  So ferocious was the encounter that the resulting carnage earned the calamitous event the epithet of “Bloody Sunday.” Echoing the words of Lestrade, the newspapers reported that foreign elements living in the East End - in reality, desperately poor people seeking justice - had joined the thousands of poor British workers in the Square, helping turn the affair into a riot. I assumed that if Roderick Cheek were not ill, he too was part of the mob.

  I, on the contrary, was never one to side with rioters no matter how just their cause, and so I did my best to avoid the fray. That meant altering the schedule I had recently developed. During the days of Holmes’ absence - that is, whenever I was free of patients - I would while away the hours at my club. Billiards, newspapers, conversation, the odd glass of Guinness - all served to address my needs. On the day scheduled for the mass protest, however, I decided to forego such pleasures. On that particular Sunday, I stayed clear of central London.

  For his part, Lestrade had his hands full. At the same time he was wrestling with the Brick Lane murders, he also had to help sort out the angry workers who had been arrested and brought to the Yard.

  Not to say that Holmes and I did not face our own challenges with two investigations going on at the same time. As yet, we had not reached any tangible conclusions regarding the murders of Gottfried and his wife though, thanks to the Irregulars, I considered closed the case that dealt with the whereabouts of Roderick Cheek. Oh, I could have informed Miss Cheek of our success myself; but as the lady was Holmes’ client, I assumed that, just as I had told Lestrade concerning my interviews with Cheek and Arbuthnot, Holmes would attend to the matter upon his return.

  Speaking of Holmes, I should mention that in spite of the length of his absence, I worried little about not having heard from him. I understood that his work took him to many strange places - though I must confess that I did indeed wonder what he might be up to.

  Late Wednesday afternoon, the eighth day since Holmes’ departure, the answer finally came. Upon returning to Baker Street following an afternoon at my club, I was happily surprised to discover my friend ensconced in our sitting room. I can picture him today as he struck one of his favourite attitudes, sitting cross-legged in an armchair enjoying his favourite briar before the hearth. It was as if he had never been away.

  “Holmes!” I fairly shouted. “You’ve come back!”

  “Ah, Watson,” said he directing a cloud of blue smoke heavenward, “I underestimate your powers of observation. As you have so astutely noted, I have indeed ‘come back.’ Fix us a brandy and water, and I shall report to you my adventures.”

  I hung my mac and bowler on the pegs near the door and, after preparing us both a brandy with water from the gasogene, settled into the armchair next to Holmes.

  “Where have you been?” I asked.

  “Why, to St Petersburg, old fellow, the capital of the Russian empire. On the Gottfried case. I thought that was obvious. That is why I didn’t think to tell you.”

  St Petersburg once more.

  However insensitive his reasoning, I was most pleased at the news. Holmes’ long journey to St Petersburg could not have been better proof of his faith in my interpretation of Dostoevsky’s novel. As for undertaking a trip to Russia in the first place, the enterprise did not surprise me. After all, as I would report in my sketch concerning Irene Adler, earlier that same year he had already travelled to Odessa to help the local authorities solve the infamous Trepoff murder.

  Though Odessa lies to the south and St Petersburg to the north, a look at a map will show that the two Russian cities are similar in distance from London. In point of fact, both of Holmes’ excursions began in the same manner - a London train to Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent and a night boat to Flushing on the coast of Holland. It was in Holland that the trips diverged; Holmes made the railway journey south to Odessa in the winter and the trip north to St Petersburg in the fall. In both cases, he went prepared for cold weather.

  More significant is that he returned from the latter excursion with kind words for me. “I owe you a grand apology, Watson,” he said, gesturing with his pipe in my direction.

  “Thank you, Holmes. You are most kind. But for what exactly are you apologizing?”

  Holmes emitted more smoke in a long exhalation. When he was finished, he said, “You are to be complimented for recognizing the motivation of the Gottfried murders.” He lifted his glass. “To Watson and his literary insights,” he toasted. “Long may they reign.” Then he sipped the brandy in my honour.

  I smiled broadly in response.

  “First,” said Holmes, “allow me to admit that as soon as you pointed out the parallels between Gottfried’s murder and that of the pawnbroker in Crime and Punishment, I suspected you were on to something. Needless to say, my own view of the crime paralleled Dostoevsky’s account from the start.”

  “Really, Holmes,” I bristled. “I would not have guessed.”

  “Oh, yes. But in order to maintain an objective investigation, I needed to remain uncommitted. Before I dared confirm your enthusiastic embrace of Dostoevsky’s plot, I wanted a first-hand account of what had transpired in Petersburg twenty years before. Hence, my trip. And now I am convinced.”

  Better late than never.

  “You were quite right, old fellow. There can be no doubt that the murders in Petersburg were the catalyst for the crimes here in London.”

  “I knew it!”

  “Yes, but allow me to go a step farther. I trust that you recall the actual murders I described that may have influenced Dostoevsky.”

  I nodded dutifully.

  “Well, consider this. Twenty years ago, might not some wretched contemporary of Dostoevsky been similarly inspired - that is, criminally inspired? What if just such a villain - let us call him Raskolnikov as Dostoevsky did - was living in St Petersburg at the time and acting out an earlier crime. That is, what if the miscreant himself was copying one of those murders from the past?”

  “What are you saying, Holmes?” Now it was my turn to sample the brandy. I had never thought to look at the St Petersburg murders from such a perspective. But then why should I? “The crimes described by Dostoevsky were fiction,” I reminded him.

  “Watson,” said he with a smile of anticipation, “consider the proposition that up to the point at which the murderer confesses, Crime and Punishment is a factual account of two real killings. I suggest that the two murders you just referred to as ‘fictional’ are, in truth, actual events that Dostoevsky disguised only slightly, events that occurred within the year before his book began appearing in serial publication.”

  “You can’t be serious, Holmes. Dostoevsky is a novelist, not a reporter. Unlike myself who described actual murders in A Study in Scarlet, he had to conjure his crimes from within his own imagination. Oh, the narrative may have been inspired by some of those true cases you mentioned, but-”

  Holmes cut me off. “Have I ever spoken to you of my friend in the Petersburg detective bureau? I first encountered him a few months before you and I met. He helped me solve the theft of a valu
able stone from the Langham, the Garibaldi Diamond. The culprit had absconded to Petersburg; and thanks to this fellow, I was able to track him down.”

  I was still wrestling with the idea that Dostoevsky had written an account of two actual murders. Picturing a Russian detective whom Holmes had befriended posed a less difficult challenge.

  “I never thought to inform you that once we had settled the murders connected to Lauriston Gardens, I cabled the police in Petersburg. My friend on the force confirmed for me what the world will soon discover with the publication of A Study in Scarlet-that it was indeed from Petersburg that Jefferson Hope, just as he reported to us, had left for Paris on the trail of Drebber and Stangerson.”

  “I had no idea you contacted the Russian police.”

  “I could offer you my friend’s real name,” Holmes said, “but I should imagine you would like to employ the appellation bestowed upon him by Dostoevsky. After all, it was Dostoevsky who dramatised his most celebrated case, Raskolnikov’s axe murders.”[1]

  “Not Porfiry Petrovitch!” I cried out. “Why, I remember him from the book.”

  “Exactly, old fellow! Porfiry Petrovitch was thirty-five when he arrested Raskolnikov for those killings. He is now sixty-six - still short, plump, and balding. Perhaps even a little more so in all three areas.”

  “Then to Porfiry,” I said, raising my glass.

  “Porfiry Petrovitch,” Holmes corrected. “The Russians do love their patronymics.”

  “To Porfiry Petrovitch then,” and the two of us finished our brandies.

  “Porfiry is very different from me, Watson,” said Holmes, already disregarding the patronymic in the name of friendship. “You know my methods. I rely on facts. He believes that facts are the very details that lead one to false conclusions. No, for Porfiry Petrovitch, psychology is the thing. He ensnares his prey with a wink and a smile. Why, without revealing an ounce of evidence - evidence he claimed to possess - he predicted to Raskolnikov that the man’s psychological nature would drive him to confess. And the villain soon did.”