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

“Anything else, Mr Holmes?” Lestrade asked.

“I do have one final question for Mr Cheek,” said my friend. “Do you own any books by Thomas Carlyle?”

Cheek furrowed his brow, as if considering the point of such a question. “Yeh,” he finally answered. “The one on hero-worship.”

Holmes nodded. “No further questions, Lestrade.”

“We’re done here then, Mr Cheek. That is, we’re done here for today.”

Lestrade called in the uniformed constable and instructed him to escort Cheek from the building.

“Take him out the back way,” ordered the Inspector. “We don’t want him conversing with his friend who’s out there awaiting his own turn before us.” Lestrade himself then left the room and returned with that very person.

Settling into the chair that Cheek had just vacated, William Arbuthnot lacked the resentment that characterised his friend. Indeed, clad in dark suit and waistcoat, he appeared to understand the gravity of the situation in which the two former school chums now found themselves.

Lestrade repeated to Arbuthnot the same questions the policeman had asked Cheek at the start - where was he and what was he doing on the night of the murders? - And he received equally unsatisfying answers.

“In my digs. Reading. For school.” Arbuthnot also volunteered that he personally did not employ the pawn-broking services of Mr Gottfried and, in fact, knew of him only indirectly - through reports from Mr Cheek.

Then it was Holmes’ turn to repeat his request concerning information about the murders in Crime and Punishment. Like Lestrade, he received virtually the same responses as offered by Cheek.

In the present tense, Arbuthnot reported Raskolnikov’s plans, his execution of the crimes, his escape from the murder scene - just about everything Cheek had said save that Arbuthnot needed no prompting to describe the nature of the fatal attacks - that the first murder had been accomplished with the blunt end of the axe and that only the second had featured the sharp edge.

At the conclusion of Arbuthnot’s questioning, Lestrade summoned the constable and had the young man escorted out in the same manner as Cheek before him. Once the door closed, Holmes exchanged looks with Porfiry Petrovitch. The Russian blinked and smiled, Holmes nodded at Lestrade, and the latter left the room to retrieve our third witness - the Russian informer I had previously met as “The Assistant.”

Flat tweed cap in hand, he swaggered in, arms swinging, moustache tips still pointing dramatically outward. Yet he started when he recognised the Russian policeman staring up at him and stammered when he spoke his name: “P-Porfiry P-Petrovitch.”

“Sit down!” commanded Lestrade.

The Assistant mumbled something in Russian. Then he lowered himself into the empty chair and placed his cap on the table.

“Ilya Petrovitch say he is surprised to see me.” These were the first words in English that the Russian detective had voiced since entering the room, and he offered them with a dry chuckle. “He is not pleased. We left each other unhappy.”

Holmes, Lestrade, and I all looked at the detective for further explanation.

“Poor fellow,” Porfiry Petrovitch said, “always losing his temper. Many - how do you say? - nicknames - they tell story. In English - ‘Explosive,’ ‘Hot head.’ Dostoevsky call him ‘Lieutenant Gunpowder.’ Too bad,” the detective murmured, slowly shaking his head.

At Porfiry Petrovitch’s feigned sadness, the Assistant clenched his fists. One could tell that he was seething.

“You know I saw notebooks of Dostoevsky,” said the Russian detective to the rest of us on his side of the table. “In them are his plans for Crime and Punishment. Not all ideas appear in the book. Fyodor Mikhailovitch use many words besides nicknames to describe Assistant Superintendent. Difficult to translate into English, but I try.” As the Russian listed the negatives, he counted them off on his fingers: “‘base,’ ‘foul,’ ‘spiteful’ - ‘scoundrel’.” Looking directly at the Assistant, he said, “But you laugh at all this, Ilya Petrovitch.”

Strangely, however, the Assistant was not even smiling. On the contrary, his lips had formed the straightest of lines, and his entire body seemed to tremble with anger.

“No need to tell you,” the Russian detective went on, “we police knew this behavior of Ilya Petrovitch. For years, we saw him push citizens, shout at prisoners, scream at colleagues. But when he hollered at superior officer - that was - how do you English say? - ‘straw that broke horse’s back.’ I was that officer, and I sacked him - with approval, of course, from Nikodim Fomitch, our superintendent. Fomitch too called Ilya Petrovitch ‘a keg of powder’.”

Glaring at the Russian detective, the Assistant pointed his forefinger directly in the policeman’s face. “I take confession in your biggest case. I take confession of Raskolnikov. He talk to me-not to you. Still, I, a proper man and a proper citizen, lose job. I get no money - not even for wife and children.”

“So you came here,” charged Lestrade, “and took the only position available to a disgraced officer - police informer.”

At the word “informer,” Holmes leaned forward. “Tell us what you remember of Raskolnikov’s confession,” he asked the Assistant.

Ilya Petrovitch twisted the right end of his pointed moustache. “Iss hard to remember. Iss twenty years since Raskolnikov come to me at station.”

“Do give it a try,” Holmes persisted.

The Assistant looked upward as he plumbed his memory. After a moment, he said, “Raskolnikov tell me he killed pawnbroker and sister with axe.”

Almost immediately came Lestrade’s seemingly harmless questions. “How did Raskolnikov describe the blows? Which end of the axe did he use?”

“He use blade on both.”

Of course! Now I remembered what had seemed so strange at the scene of the murders. Cheek and Arbuthnot had correctly reported that in the novel the pawnbroker had been struck by the blunt end of the axe and that only her sister had been hit by the blade itself. “Hold on,” said I, pointing out the anomaly. “Dostoevsky said that only one victim had been struck by the blade.”

“Heh, heh, heh,” cackled Porfiry Petrovitch. “Police try to keep secrets. I