Sherlock Holmes and The Shadows of St Petersburg Read online

  “A double murder,” announced Lestrade on a cold Tuesday morning in late ’87.

  Like a magical incantation, the words of the policeman served to excite the passions of Sherlock Holmes. My friend extinguished the flame he had just caused to erupt from his Bunsen burner and stood upright. “Pray, take a chair,” said he to Lestrade, “and give us the details.”

  It may seem obvious to begin the account of the gruesome double axe-murders with the arrival of the police inspector. But such a strategy belies the true origin of the matter. An earlier occurrence in the last week of October - just after our business with Henry James had concluded[1] and just a few days before the start of the case I titled “The Red Headed League” - was equally important in shaping the course of our investigation into the brutal murders. Maybe even more so. I simply did not comprehend its significance at the time.

  In the years following my return from military service, I made it my business toward the end of each October to stop in at the London Library in St James’s Square. In such a fashion, I anticipated the arrival of the riotous Guy Fawkes Day festivities, the annual celebrations that commemorate the foiling of the Gun Powder Plot, the treacherous scheme in November of 1605, which sought to destroy the entire British government.

  Soothing my nerves remained a necessity in those early years back from Afghanistan, and thus I established the habit of securing new reading material to prepare for the riotous holiday. Escaping between the covers of an engaging book never failed to deaden the maddening shrieks and wild chants of the madcap revellers running amok in Baker Street. After all, how many times can one tolerate the old nursery rhyme: “Remember, remember! The Fifth of November”?

  It was not as if I had no other distractions - at least, not in the fall of ’87. Why, in less than three weeks - on the twenty-first - my very first Holmes narrative, A Study in Scarlet, was set to appear in print. And yet not even my excitement over its upcoming publication in Beeton’s Christmas Annual could deter my intention during Guy Fawkes Day to travel on my own in the diverting literary landscape of some other author.

  My friend Lomax, the sub-librarian at the London Library, knew my tastes. Not only had he become acquainted with my late-October desires, but he also appreciated my penchant for the latest books on crime. Greeting me with a conspiratorial grin, therefore, he whispered, “I have something for you, Watson,” and reaching below the red mahogany countertop, withdrew a substantial-looking volume with burgundy boards. “It’s a Russian novel about a pair of hatchet murders,” he said softly.

  I took the book and examined the title page: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I had not heard of the work, and I knew nothing of its author save that his name sounded Russian.

  “It was written more than twenty years ago,” Lomax explained, “but Dostoevsky died recently, and just last year Whishaw translated it into English.”

  I did know of Fred Whishaw, the popular English novelist. He had been born in St Petersburg, and one could assume a competent translation. I thanked Lomax for his help and with my new treasure in hand marched off to Baker Street more confident than ever of avoiding the distraction of the upcoming revelry.

  Happily, the Saturday that was the Fifth of November came and went without any major disruptions. My thick Russian novel had successfully fulfilled its purpose. So engaging was the book, in fact, that on the following Tuesday morning I sat before the spluttering log fire finishing its final pages.

  At the same time, Sherlock Holmes, dressed in shirtsleeves, was in the midst of setting up his Bunsen burner. He appeared to be in preparation of bringing some vile-smelling liquid to a boil when, just as I was completing the last page, we were interrupted by a knock on the door.

  “Yes?” I answered.

  Billy, our boy in buttons, entered to announce, “Inspector Lestrade.” Straightening his tunic and standing even taller, he added, “Of Scotland Yard.”

  The lad had scarcely completed his pronouncement when in strode the man himself. Dressed to face the elements, Lestrade sported a bowler atop his head, a scarf round his neck, and a full-length, heavy coat enveloping his frame.

  Still clutching my Russian novel, I rose to greet him. Holmes, however, continued fidgeting with the burner.

  To give Lestrade his due, he knew how to capture my friend’s attention. Waving with limp hand at the flame over which Holmes was hovering, the Inspector said, “If you can bring yourself to break away from whatever fiddle-faddle you’re up to, Mr Holmes, I have a case that I thought might interest you.”

  “A case, you say?”

  “That’s right,” said the policeman with a sardonic grin. It was then that he dangled the bait to which I referred at the start of this narrative. “I speak of a double murder.”

  Eyes alight, Holmes gestured for the man to remove his coat, and Lestrade hung it along with his hat and scarf upon the pegs near the door. Rubbing his hands together, he eagerly approached our hearth.

  “What has happened?” I asked as the three of us settled in before the fire.

  “Ordinarily, gentlemen, I wouldn’t waste your morning with a murder case in the East End. Routine business, usually.”

  We could all attest to the human misery in that part of the great metropolis - the lack of food, the lack of heat, the lack of work. It was just such conditions that caused the respectable classes to avoid the danger and violence permeating the area. And yet it would require almost two decades to pass before Jack London, the American writer who started us off on that business concerning the Assassination Bureau, would describe the poor souls who lived in the East End as “people of the abyss”.[2]

  “A Jewish pawnbroker called Gottfried was killed yesterday evening a bit after 7.,” Lestrade offered matter-of-factly. “Quite a religious fellow, I’m told.”

  “Any victim of murder deserves justice,” Holmes intoned. “His religion plays no role.”

  “As that may be, Mr Holmes, but whatever his beliefs, he’d been struck numerous times in the head with an axe-”

  My jaw dropped at the news.

  “-but the final blow - what do the Frenchies call it, the ‘coup de grâce’? - split open his skull. Some bloke who’d come by to do business with him at a quarter-to-eight discovered the body just inside the flat. The door had been left ajar.”

  “My word,” I murmured.

  “That’s not all of it, Doctor. Recall there was a second victim. This same fellow also found a woman, presumably the pawnbroker’s wife. She was lying in the doorway between the sitting room and the bedroom. Her skull was split open as well, only in her case one blow seemed sufficient to do the deed.”

  “My God!” I exclaimed.

  “Oh, yes, Doctor. Quite shocking indeed! Blood all round. Judging from the shambles in the bedroom - drawers pulled out, chairs overturned, bed in disarray - we reckon robbery was the motive. No doubt, whoever it was that had an earlier appointment with Gottfried, was looking for something. Needless to say, the poor wretches who live in the building claim not to have heard or seen anything.”

  Oh, the crime was horrible enough, but I must confess that my initial shock was not at its brutality. Rather, it was at the mention of the word “axe” - the murderer’s weapon of choice in the novel I had just completed reading. (Whishaw translated the word as “hatchet”, the same term Lomax had used in the Library to pique my interest.) And, strangely enough, in Dostoevsky’s book it was a pawnbroker in the most impoverished section of St Petersburg that had also been the major victim.

  Sherlock Holmes remained unimpressed. “I was anticipating a greater challenge, Lestrade,” he yawned and stared into the fire. “Axe-murders and theft in the East End? You were quite right. ‘Routine business,’ just as you said. Certainly not stimulating enough to distract me from my scientific endeavours. I leave it to the local authorities to pursue justice for the de
ad.” With a tone of finality, Holmes began to rise.

  At the same time, a smile worked its way across the Inspector’s face. “Save for this, Mr Holmes.” With those intriguing words, Lestrade withdrew from his jacket pocket what at first glance looked to be a small gift. Partially wrapped in brown paper and encircled by red twine, it appeared a trifle larger than a deck of playing cards. To my great surprise, it too mirrored a clue that I recalled from Dostoevsky’s novel.

  At the sight of the package, Holmes’ steel-grey eyes lit up. I had seen that look of keen interest present itself before - it was the same excited expression that appeared whenever a challenging puzzle seemed imminent. Sitting down again, Holmes held out his hand and gestured impatiently for Lestrade to place the package in his open palm.

  With not a little anticipation, I watched as my friend withdrew a flat block of wood from the opened bloom of paper he was holding. The wood was topped with a congruent piece of lead about one-quarter inch thick. Turning the object over in his long fingers, Holmes examined it from all sides.

  “Call it a loose end, Mr Holmes,” said Lestrade. “We found it on the floor near Gottfried’s body. It was open just as it is now. It must have been in his hands when he was struck down - though I’ll be damned if I can figure out what the blasted thing is.”

  I was fully prepared to shed light on the matter. Dostoevsky describes a similarly wrapped package offered by the murderer to distract his victim’s attention. But with Holmes’ examining the paper through his magnifying lens, I knew well enough to keep silent.

  Nodding as he detected the tiny drops of crimson splatter, Holmes now focused his attention on the red string, which ended in tight little curls. Owing to the complexity of the knot, it was easy to conclude that the package had originally been tied very tightly indeed.

  “Common wrapping paper and common-enough twine,” observed Holmes, “materials that can be purchased anywhere.”

  “I thought the same,” said Lestrade.

  But Holmes had not completed all his remarks. “Note that the string appears stretched and the knot remains intact. The string has been pulled down and away rather than cut or untied. There’s nothing written on the paper - no address, not even a name - so presumably the package was not meant to be posted or delivered - rather, an object to be presented.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Lestrade impatiently, “but what do you make of the bloody thing itself?”

  Closing his eyes as if he were conjuring a picture in his mind, Holmes formed a smile and then looked at the policeman. “Use your imagination, Lestrade. Consider the package in its original state - all wrapped up and ready to be handed to the pawnbroker. Unable to discern the contents, might he not regard it as something of value? A silver or gold cigarette case, perhaps? The size and weight are both appropriate.”

  Lestrade rubbed his chin. “Yes, but he couldn’t be certain, could he? He’d have to undo the string.”

  “The tightly knotted string,” Holmes added.

  “Says you, Mr Holmes.” Lestrade scratched his head. “No disrespect intended, I’m sure, but in the end this thing is junk. Why would anyone tie it up like that?”

  I could restrain myself no longer. “Gentlemen!” I cried out. “How better to distract the pawnbroker? Give the man something that requires time and concentration to open - then strike him down with the axe when he is preoccupied trying to unwrap it. Why, I have just read about such a crime in this book!” And I held up the thick volume I was still holding.

  “A good theory, Doctor,” said Lestrade stroking his chin again. “But any wrapped bauble would do the trick. Why add the piece of metal?”

  Ignoring my reference to the book I had just waved in front of them, Holmes supplied the explanation. “By itself, the piece of wood is too light to suggest anything of value. It may be an appropriate size, but it lacks the heft. Top it with a piece of lead, however, and you have an object that, when concealed in wrapping paper, might actually seem to be something of some value - a false pledge, one might call it. And whilst the poor man was fixated on unfastening the string and paper, what could be easier - as friend Watson has already suggested - than to attack him from behind?”

  Lestrade bit his upper lip as he considered the theory. “Splendid!” he said at last. “Now all we have to do is track the villain down.”

  “Do you mind if I take a look at the murder scene, Lestrade?” asked Holmes. “In the end, this case does seem to offer a few points of interest.”

  Lestrade was quick to nod his approval. Though he never liked admitting his dependence on Sherlock Holmes, the Inspector had, after all, come to my friend for advice.

  Holmes turned to me. “Care to join us, Watson?”

  Needless to say, I readily agreed. “I have no patients today. And the similarities to the case about which I was just reading” - for emphasis, I again brandished the book - “have attracted my interest.”

  “No need to carry that thing along,” offered Holmes. “I am certain we shall do quite well without the aid of Mr Dostoevsky.”

  Lestrade responded with a look of confusion. Nonetheless, he agreed to convey the two of us to the scene of the murders. A police van waited outside; and after bundling ourselves in heavy coats and marching down the stairs, we climbed into the four-wheeler. At the crack of the driver’s whip, it lurched forward and, rattling down Baker Street, proceeded to turn left into the Marylebone Road and make its way eastward across the city.

  * * *

  It was a gloomy drive through London on a dimly-lit November morning. Dark clouds covered the sun, and a thick fog hung about us. A journey to the site of two deaths prompts little idle chatter in general, and we three sat with our private thoughts as we plunged onward. In point of fact, as I gazed out the windows of the police van, I fancied how similar were the monstrous images of desperation in the novel I had just finished reading and those depressing scenes that we were now about to face in reality.

  Poverty blighted all. The East End attracted the poorest wretches from the various corners of the world - Jews from Eastern Europe most recently. Located downwind from the city and originally established beyond the city’s limits, the area presented the foulest-smelling occupations imaginable. Tanneries and fulling mills poisoned the air; thick fog clogged the atmosphere; dampness from the river extended throughout the backstreets and warrens. Inconsistency reigned. Industries rose and fell; docks opened and closed; workers lost their jobs; beggars roamed the streets; prostitution, thievery, and murder thrived.

  Not even the spiritual reputation of the religious could escape the shadow of the East End. The dead man and his wife had lived in a rundown boarding house in Brick Lane in Spitalfields not far from the Whitechapel Road. Though we did not know it at the time - the atrocities performed by Jack the Ripper were still months away - the fact that such unspeakable crimes could take place in this part of the city surprised no one familiar with the area. For generations, a legacy of terror would haunt the inhabitants of the East End.

  The uniformed constable standing watch at the entrance to the house in Brick Lane sprang to attention at the arrival of the police van. Following Lestrade, we made our way up the few steps to the outer door. No sooner did the Inspector push it open than we were assaulted by waves of stench - burnt oil, hot grease, overcooked chicken, singed garlic - the residue of foreign cooking, I surmised.

  Lestrade made for the stairs, but Holmes paused to have a look about the entryway and the floor round the base of the staircase. In the weak light permeating the begrimed window next to the outer door, Holmes directed our attention to a small closet built into the wall beneath the stairs.

  Only after holding up his glass to examine its wooden doorframe did he open the small door to reveal the confines of the tiny chamber. Clearly the domain of the caretaker, the darkened interior could not have been more than three feet square an
d five feet high. In it were arrayed a broom, a mop, and a bucket.

  “Not much room for a hidey, I daresay,” observed Lestrade.

  Yet plenty of room, I could not help thinking, for any one of the miserable human beings observed by Dostoevsky who, rather than face immediate death, would willingly choose to spend the rest of their lives stranded on just such a “yard of surface” (as translated by Whishaw; “square yard” Mrs Garnett would more felicitously call it).

  “There is space enough in this closet,” said Holmes, “to conceal the vilest of villains.” Then sinking to his knees, he scrutinised the splintered flooring just before the door. “Aha!” he exclaimed a moment later as he rubbed his fingers over the wood. “A spot of blood. Too much unsettled dust and dirt to draw more specific conclusions.”

  Now he held up his glass to examine more of the area surrounding the closet. I might have predicted what he would find. In the shadows a few paces to the left of the small door he stooped over and pointed to a tiny box covered in black velveteen.

  “A jeweller’s case,” said he, picking it up.

  “Blimey,” muttered Lestrade. “My men missed that.”

  “Note the finger-marks in blood on the top,” said Holmes. “No doubt they come from the murder scene.” He flipped it open, and the spring-charged lid made a small popping sound as it gaped wide.

  Resting inside on a bed of black velvet, lay a pair of gold drop-earrings, both about one-half inch in length and curiously shaped in a figure-eight design. “Infinity,” Holmes murmured. Within each of the twin golden loops was set a small stone of polished black onyx.

  “Why,” Lestrade said, “the box must have been dropped by the killer on his way out. Some of his stolen loot.”

  “Or perhaps he was hiding in the closet,” I dared venture, “to avoid people on the stairs. He might have dropped it then.”

  Lestrade knit his brow at my suggestion, but I was merely repeating the events from Dostoevsky’s novel. There too a pair of earrings is found near the murdered pawnbroker’s flat, stolen earrings inadvertently dropped by the murderer as he takes refuge behind an open door.