Sherlock Holmes and The Shadows of St Petersburg by Daniel Victor (short novels to read TXT) 📕

In spite of the abruptness of Holmes’ interruption, I retained enough composure to appreciate that Miss Cheek had not answered my question. Holmes had mentioned associates in the East End. To whom was he referring? I wondered. Before I could ask any further questions, however, he escorted our visitor to the door; assured her that his fees would be acceptable to her budget; and before conducting her to the stairs, recorded her address in Norwood so he could notify her when there was news.

No sooner had he closed the door than Sherlock Holmes turned and admonished me once more. “Watson, I insist that you not bring up that Dostoevsky humbug in every case we encounter. Had you never read the book, you would not be making such connections. What is next? Will you read Miss Bronte’s Jane Eyre and begin searching for mad women in every attic you espy?”

Yet another rebuke, and his previous complaint still ringing in my ears. His criticisms always stung - especially when delivered with that wry smile he was just then displaying. “Now,” said he “I shall meet with the Baker Street Irregulars.”

The group to whom Holmes referred consisted of his personal collection of street urchins. In their ragged and dirty clothes, they could travel the byways of London and raise no suspicions, especially in the squalor of the East End from where a number of them hailed.

Dostoevsky may have rightly bemoaned the ill treatment of St Petersburg’s “gutter children” (to employ Mrs Garnett’s translation), but at least here in London Holmes offered such youths practical employment. He paid the lads handsomely for their services though I thought that calling them “associates” seemed to be gilding the lily, as it were.

“With this likeness of the missing person,” Holmes said, picking up the photograph of Roderick Cheek, “I have little doubt they shall find him post-haste.”

* * *

When I came down for breakfast the next morning, Sherlock Holmes, attired in ear-flapped travelling cap, wool scarf, and Inverness cape, appeared ready for cold weather. More to the point, he was carrying his Gladstone.

“I have a trip to make, Watson. It shall take me out of the country for a number of days - perhaps a week or more. I shall give you a full report upon my return.”

“Where - ?” I began to ask, but he was already out the door. Holmes would frequently go off somewhere on his own and leave me in the dark. Yet seldom did he do so at the start of a new case - or two new cases, to be precise. With nothing left to do just then, I turned my attention to the breakfast of kippers and eggs that Mrs Hudson had left waiting for me on the table. There was no sense in letting the food go to waste.

Chapter Five: Voices from the East End

Not two hours after Holmes’ abrupt departure, Charlie Duffle, the leader of the Irregulars, came to present his findings.

“We found the bloke Mr ‘Olmes was looking for, Dr Watson.” he announced proudly. “No trouble at all.” Returning the picture Holmes had lent him, he pointed to the face of Roderick Cheek. “‘E’s hid out in a place in Goulston Street, hain’t ‘e?”

Having spied the person in the photograph walking along a side street, one of the young watchers conveyed this information up the chain of command. Thus, it was Charlie himself who took up the hunt; waited for Roderick Cheek to reappear; and when he did, followed him to a boarding house in Goulston Street.

“Fourth floor,” Charlie added with a proud grin and furnished me the address along with the room’s number. In point of fact, the building was not far from Brick Lane, the scene of the pawnbroker’s murder. Promising to share with his mates the agreed-upon sum established by Holmes, the lad took his payment and bolted down the stairs.

No sooner had he exited than I faced a decision. Should I wait for Holmes’ return to question Roderick Cheek, or should I take it upon myself to perform the interrogation? Actually, my choice seemed obvious. Not only was there no way of knowing for how long Holmes would be gone, but there also remained the possibility that if Cheek changed his lodgings, we could lose sight of the elusive fellow once again.

I must also confess that another thought continued to intrigue me. With Holmes away, I might more freely pursue the line of thought, which I simply could not get out of my head - the uncanny relationship between Cheek’s behaviour and that of Dostoevsky’s fictional protagonist.

Ultimately, it was justice for the two bloodied corpses I had viewed the day before that prompted me into action. I slipped Cheek’s photograph into my jacket pocket, put on my heavy overcoat, marched down the stairs, and proceeded out to the kerb.

* * *

“Goulston Street,” the hansom driver repeated. “Sure you want t’ go there, Guv?”

Assuring him that I was, I climbed in and almost immediately fell back against the red-leather cushion as the hansom shot off down Baker Street and not long thereafter turned east into Oxford Street. The more eastward we travelled, the more the scenery devolved from the stately Georgian architecture and ordered parks and squares of Bloomsbury to the run-down warehouses and dingy living quarters of the East End. The cab finally came to a halt before an uninviting rooming house of five storeys.

The cab took off as soon as I paid the driver, no one wanting to remain longer than necessary in that section of the city. For my part, I turned my attention to the dark-brick building before me, the reported dwelling place of Roderick Cheek. On the ground floor stood a small shop selling Jewish foods. I could make out the name “Lindermann” on a faded sign, the block Roman letters contrasting with the curls and flourishes of the seriffed Hebrew script that anointed much of the front wall and windows.

A few paces