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

“Saves me the trouble,” Holmes murmured, patting the coat pocket where he stowed his small jemmy tools.

“Holmes, you don’t mean to say you intend to enter?”

“Of course I do, Watson. The door is not locked.”

“But you-”

He walked into the room before I could accuse him of breaking the law.

All was as it had been on my first visit in the tiny quarters, save for the pile of blankets on the bed. On this occasion, no one was under them; and yet they appeared even more haphazardly thrown together - if such a display could be contemplated.

For his part, Holmes circled the perimeter of the small confines using the toe of his boot to test for weaknesses in the baseboard just below where the yellowed wallpaper ended. It was in such an opening that Raskolnikov had initially hidden the gold trinkets he had stolen from the murdered pawnbroker.

Holmes next turned his attention to the drawers, pulling them out to have a look, then proceeding to examine the bookshelf. On the top, a few handwritten sheets of paper lay fastened together. Holmes quickly read through the pages and then showed them to me. Someone had translated into English Raskolnikov’s article on crime that had appeared in the Russian pamphlet called Periodical Word (Mrs Garnett translated the title as Periodical Review.) It was the same article that had so fascinated Porfiry Petrovitch in Crime and Punishment.

In it, Raskolnikov argued that the great men of history, the extraordinary men, got, as it were, a “free pass” to ignore the laws set out for the rest of us, the ordinary, inferior people of the world. (“The law is not for them,” as Mrs Garnett succinctly rendered it.) If necessary to further their own important goals, the great men - Napoleon or Isaac Newton, to cite but two of Raskolnikov’s examples - should be allowed to commit murder. For where would the world be without their notable accomplishments?

According to Holmes, it was Porfiry Petrovitch’s belief throughout the investigation that Raskolnikov placed himself on a level with those extraordinary men. As a matter of course, it followed that Raskolnikov viewed the pawnbroker he murdered as nothing more than a louse.

Suddenly, we heard loud voices and a heavy tramp of feet coming down the corridor. I replaced the papers just as the door opened; and Roderick Cheek, obviously aware that uninvited people were in his room, put only his head in to have a safe look-round. When he saw my familiar face, he pushed the door wide open, strutted in, and waved for his companion, William Arbuthnot, to join him.

“Well, well, well,” he trumpeted, “what do we have here? Two robbers in need of a police escort to the clink? What do you propose, William? You’re reading for the law.”

Holmes and I stood our ground. We had not been caught riffling through Cheek’s drawers, after all; and one cannot forget that the door had been left unlocked.

“My name is Sherlock Holmes,” announced my friend, “and I am working with the police to help solve the mystery of the murdered pawnbroker.”

“Ah, yes,” said Cheek, “back to Dostoevsky.”

“Have you searched the room for the hole in the wall yet,” William wanted to know, “the hidey where Raskolnikov first stashed the stolen jewellery?”

Holmes and I exchanged glances. It was obvious that William too recalled the details of the crime in the novel.

“And don’t forget,” added William, “that Raskolnikov had a sister who wanted to marry an unctuous cad just to gain money to help her brother.”

“Like Priscilla,” snarled Roderick. “Except that I haven’t convinced her not to do so just yet.”

“Her fiancé, Percy Farragut, is a banker,” said William. “Swells like him favour women who lack their own funds - just like that ass Luzhin in Crime and Punishment, who wanted to marry Raskolnikov’s sister. A woman’s poor provenance enables these toffs to act as lord-and-master. Priscilla is a case in point.”

“Farragut’s a swine,” muttered Roderick. Then he blurted out some more of that high-pitched laughter before adding, “Maybe some foul play will come his way.”

“I don’t know about that,” said William, “but I do know that your sister deserves better than Percy ‘bloody’ Farragut. Why, his only attraction is his money! I can tell you that if I had the funds that he does, I would be pursuing Priscilla myself.”

“You and my sister?” laughed Roderick. “Don’t be daft.” And together the two of them broke into a cascade of silly laughter - just what one might expect from a pair of inebriated university students. Save that Roderick no longer attended, and neither one appeared drunk.

“Come, Watson,” said Holmes. “There’s nothing more to be learned from these two.” With a quick nod of his head that did nothing to interrupt the young men’s jollity, Holmes exited the room, and I followed.

On our way out to the street, I insisted we stop in at Lindermann’s. Since first seeing the food shop more than a week before, I had developed a craving for halva, the honey-and-sesame-based confection, which I had discovered during my military service in Afghanistan. Hoping it would be available among the Jewish foods as well, I was pleased to discover that this turned out to be the case. Holmes turned down the portion I offered him in the hansom, and so I feasted by myself on the large, marbled chunk I had purchased for the two of us. It lasted for most of our drive back to Baker Street.

* * *

We arrived in our sitting room that Thursday afternoon to discover a thin, balding man in a smart though tight-fitting grey suit postured primly on our settee. He wore a Vandyke beard and peered up at us through a pince-nez clipped to the bridge of his nose. A black bowler perched on his right knee.

“Mr Farragut, I presume,” said Holmes, “how good of you to come calling.”

Why, we had just been discussing the fiancé of Miss Priscilla Cheek, and here sat that very personage. The man stood,