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

black clothes, the adults who stood shedding tears near the rabbi - the Gottfrieds’ two sons and their wives, I would learn later - all wore head coverings: the men, tall hats; the women, round affairs shielded with black lace. Also dressed in black, two young grandchildren, a boy and a girl, leaned quietly against their parents. The police, Lestrade explained, had already spoken to the family members concerning their suspicions and gained no useful information.

I might add that due to his height and slender physique, the taller of the sons put me in mind of the still absent Holmes. In fact, a single look at the man’s frock coat, dangling side locks, and full beard suggested how easily one might disguise oneself. Had the young boy not suddenly grasped his father’s leg, I could even imagine the tall son being the absent Holmes himself.

Others besides the family were also in attendance. Four young men were hovering a number of yards beyond the canopy. Three wore flat caps and one a bowler, their distance from the graves as well as their conventional attire suggesting little connection to either the family or to the religion.

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