Sherlock Holmes and The Shadows of St Petersburg by Daniel Victor (bookstand for reading TXT) 📗

mention that in spite of the length of his absence, I worried little about not having heard from him. I understood that his work took him to many strange places - though I must confess that I did indeed wonder what he might be up to.

Late Wednesday afternoon, the eighth day since Holmes’ departure, the answer finally came. Upon returning to Baker Street following an afternoon at my club, I was happily surprised to discover my friend ensconced in our sitting room. I can picture him today as he struck one of his favourite attitudes, sitting cross-legged in an armchair enjoying his favourite briar before the hearth. It was as if he had never been away.

“Holmes!” I fairly shouted. “You’ve come back!”

“Ah, Watson,” said he directing a cloud of blue smoke heavenward, “I underestimate your powers of observation. As you have so astutely noted, I have indeed ‘come back.’ Fix us a brandy and water, and I shall report to you my adventures.”

I hung my mac and bowler on the pegs near the door and, after preparing us both a brandy with water from the gasogene, settled into the armchair next to Holmes.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“Why, to St Petersburg, old fellow, the capital of the Russian empire. On the Gottfried case. I thought that was obvious. That is why I didn’t think to tell you.”

St Petersburg once more.

However insensitive his reasoning, I was most pleased at the news. Holmes’ long journey to St Petersburg could not have been better proof of his faith in my interpretation of Dostoevsky’s novel. As for undertaking a trip to Russia in the first place, the enterprise did not surprise me. After all, as I would report in my sketch concerning Irene Adler, earlier that same year he had already travelled to Odessa to help the local authorities solve the infamous Trepoff murder.

Though Odessa lies to the south and St Petersburg to the north, a look at a map will show that the two Russian cities are similar in distance from London. In point of fact, both of Holmes’ excursions began in the same manner - a London train to Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent and a night boat to Flushing on the coast of Holland. It was in Holland that the trips diverged; Holmes made the railway journey south to Odessa in the winter and the trip north to St Petersburg in the fall. In both cases, he went prepared for cold weather.

More significant is that he returned from the latter excursion with kind words for me. “I owe you a grand apology, Watson,” he said, gesturing with his pipe in my direction.

“Thank you, Holmes. You are most kind. But for what exactly are you apologizing?”

Holmes emitted more smoke in a long exhalation. When he was finished, he said, “You are to be complimented for recognizing the motivation of the Gottfried murders.” He lifted his glass. “To Watson and his literary insights,” he toasted. “Long may they reign.” Then he sipped the brandy in my honour.

I smiled broadly in response.

“First,” said Holmes, “allow me to admit that as soon as you pointed out the parallels between Gottfried’s murder and that of the pawnbroker in Crime and Punishment, I suspected you were on to something. Needless to say, my own view of the crime paralleled Dostoevsky’s account from the start.”

“Really, Holmes,” I bristled. “I would not have guessed.”

“Oh, yes. But in order to maintain an objective investigation, I needed to remain uncommitted. Before I dared confirm your enthusiastic embrace of Dostoevsky’s plot, I wanted a first-hand account of what had transpired in Petersburg twenty years before. Hence, my trip. And now I am convinced.”

Better late than never.

“You were quite right, old fellow. There can be no doubt that the murders in Petersburg were the catalyst for the crimes here in London.”

“I knew it!”

“Yes, but allow me to go a step farther. I trust that you recall the actual murders I described that may have influenced Dostoevsky.”

I nodded dutifully.

“Well, consider this. Twenty years ago, might not some wretched contemporary of Dostoevsky been similarly inspired - that is, criminally inspired? What if just such a villain - let us call him Raskolnikov as Dostoevsky did - was living in St Petersburg at the time and acting out an earlier crime. That is, what if the miscreant himself was copying one of those murders from the past?”

“What are you saying, Holmes?” Now it was my turn to sample the brandy. I had never thought to look at the St Petersburg murders from such a perspective. But then why should I? “The crimes described by Dostoevsky were fiction,” I reminded him.

“Watson,” said he with a smile of anticipation, “consider the proposition that up to the point at which the murderer confesses, Crime and Punishment is a factual account of two real killings. I suggest that the two murders you just referred to as ‘fictional’ are, in truth, actual events that Dostoevsky disguised only slightly, events that occurred within the year before his book began appearing in serial publication.”

“You can’t be serious, Holmes. Dostoevsky is a novelist, not a reporter. Unlike myself who described actual murders in A Study in Scarlet, he had to conjure his crimes from within his own imagination. Oh, the narrative may have been inspired by some of those true cases you mentioned, but-”

Holmes cut me off. “Have I ever spoken to you of my friend in the Petersburg detective bureau? I first encountered him a few months before you and I met. He helped me solve the theft of a valuable stone from the Langham, the Garibaldi Diamond. The culprit had absconded to Petersburg; and thanks to this fellow, I was able to track him down.”

I was still wrestling with the idea that Dostoevsky had written an account of two actual murders. Picturing a Russian detective whom Holmes had befriended posed a less difficult challenge.

“I never thought to inform you that once we had settled the murders connected to Lauriston