The amiable expression on the Russian’s face became solemn. ‘You will be aware, Mr Holmes, that things in Russia are not as they are here. If a wrong is done, there may be no redress. A great wrong was done to my family and the perpetrator was a man of the nobility. My efforts to obtain justice angered him and life became extremely difficult for me and my sister. We thought it better to leave our country.’
Holmes nodded again. ‘Since you have been in Britain,’ he said, ‘have you had any dealings with Major Kyriloff of the Russian Embassy?’
Gregorieffs expression turned to one of distaste and Miss Wortley-Swan emitted a most unladylike snort.
‘That man!’ she exclaimed. ‘Major Kyriloff seems to imagine that every former citizen of Imperial Russia is a dedicated revolutionary, spending every day in schemes to murder the Tzar and overthrow the state! He and his agents are all over the poorer districts of London, harassing people whose only concern is to settle down in a strange country and make a living.’
‘You have met him?’ asked Holmes.
‘Many times,’ she declared, ‘and he does not improve with acquaintance. His agents creep and spy among their unfortunate fellow countrymen in England, spreading lies and sowing money to create mischief. He is an unmitigated scoundrel!’
‘You must,’ said Holmes, ‘hear a good deal of conversation about Kyriloff and his agents in the course of your work, Miss Wortley-Swan. Do you, by any chance, know what it is that most engages the major at present?’
‘No,’ she said, with a thoughtful expression. ‘You are right that I hear a great deal of him, but at the moment he seems to have left the East End alone. Something else - and I do not know what - has taken up his time of late. I cannot say that the East End is sorry for his absence.’
My friend asked a few more, fairly perfunctory, questions of our hostess and her interpreter, then rose to take his leave. We were in the hall when he turned again to Miss Wortley-Swan.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but you mentioned the brutal murder of your fiance. I believe that his death remains unsolved?’
Her face tightened. ‘Although it was twenty years ago,’ she said, ‘it is not a matter which I care to talk about. It is true that his death remains unsolved to this day. The wretched police of Paris chose to treat it as a random robbery by street bandits. Good afternoon, Mr Holmes, Doctor.’
It was a sunny afternoon and we made our way back to the little station on foot. Holmes was silent and I took it that he was disappointed by the afternoon’s results.
‘A wasted journey then, Holmes?’ I ventured after a while.
‘Nonsense!’ he snapped. ‘We have learned a great deal, or at least, I have.’
Seven
Conclusions and Obstacles
‘So, Watson’, said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat back in our compartment on the train to Victoria, ‘you believe that our visit to Miss Wortley-Swan was wasted?’
‘Well, yes,’ I said. ‘Surely the purpose of your visit was to find the Russian who has been following Mrs Fordeland. Instead we found the lady’s interpreter.’
My friend nodded and drew a paper from his coat pocket. ‘And you believe that Mr Gregorieff is not our client’s pursuer.’ He held up the paper and placed a hand across its lower area. ‘This,’ he continued,
‘is Mrs Fordeland’s excellent sketch of her follower. Look at the eyes.’
‘But,’ I protested, ‘the interpreter is slighter, bespectacled and wears only a goatee beard.’
‘Look at the eyes,’ he repeated. ‘Imagine them behind pince-nez, ones which, incidentally, have only plain glass in them.’
I peered at the portrait as Holmes continued to mask the lower part of the face.
‘You’re right!’ I exclaimed. ‘The eyes are the same. Gregorieff could be a brother to the man in the drawing!’
Holmes snorted, and replaced the paper in his pocket. ‘Watson,’ he said, ‘we are not talking about a brother here. Gregorieff is the same man.’
‘But the build, the full beard!’ I protested.
Holmes’ exasperation with my slowness snapped. ‘Great Heavens, Watson!’ he exclaimed irritably.
‘How many times over the years have you seen me adopt a disguise? And how many of those times have I made my features more rotund by pads inside my cheeks, or made my build more corpulent by padding beneath my clothing? No, Watson, Gregori Gregorieff, if that is really his name, is our man. If there were the least doubt in my mind, and there is not, there are two confirmatory circumstances.’
‘What are they?’ I asked, cautiously.
‘Firstly, Mr Gregorieff’s choice of tobacco. It is precisely the singular blend which our client’s pursuer smokes, and it is rolled in identical cigarettes. Secondly, there is something which Mrs Fordeland herself told us. She said that, when she first became aware of the Russian couple, she thought that the man looked a little like an interpreter she had employed in Russia. It is hardly surprising that she failed to make the connection. Apart from Gregorieff’s disguise, it is more than a quarter of a century since she was in Russia and she had, one imagines, no reason to suppose that Gregorieff was in London.’
‘So Gregorieff was probably Mrs Fordeland’s interpreter?’ I asked.
‘Excellent, Watson!’ said my friend, sardonically. ‘There is certainly something in Mrs Fordeland’s past which involves Gregorieff. Something which she has chosen to conceal from us.’
‘But she said that she did not recognize the bearded man and you appear to accept that she did not,’ I protested.
‘Certainly, Watson, I accept that she did not recognize him, but she glossed over her journey to Russia, making no importance of it. Yet it must be central to the entire mystery.’
He leaned forward earnestly and counted points off on his long fingers. ‘Firstly,’ he said, ‘our client travelled in Russia years ago. Secondly, she is being followed by two Russians who turn out to be her former interpreter and, if we believe him, his sister. Thirdly, she is also followed by two agents of the Russian Embassy, one the devious and ruthless Major Kyriloff. Fourthly, Major Kyriloff went to the trouble of indicating to Mycroft that something with which I am dealing is of embarrassment to Russia.’
‘We cannot be sure that he meant Mrs Fordeland’s problem,’ I said.
‘Oh, we can, Watson, if only because I have no other enquiry in hand which has the remotest
connection with Russia.’ He paused. ‘Nevertheless,’ he continued, ‘there is a fifth element present which I do not understand at all.’
‘What is that?’ I asked.
‘The connection between Gregorieff and Miss Wortley-Swan. You saw it, Watson - the guarded glances between them and the carefully expressed answers. Their manner was that of co-conspirators guarding a secret, but I confess that I do not, at present, see what that secret may be.’
‘It is evidently something with a Russian connection,’ I observed.
‘Very good, Watson,’ he said - again sardonically.
I ignored my friend’s attitude. ‘Why do you imagine that the Russian Embassy is so interested in Mrs Fordeland?’ I asked.
‘We know why in part,’ he replied. ‘Skovinski-Rimkoff told Mycroft that my enquiry affects “the honour of his country”. That country is in a very delicate state. It has a newly crowned Tzar, married to a German woman who is unpopular, both with the crowd and within the royal family. There are
constant attempts at assassination of officials and even the Romanovs themselves. Many of those attempts are undoubtedly plotted in London and other foreign cities. It is little wonder that the odious Major Kyriloff is being pressed by a Romanov cousin. The catastrophe at Khodynka has raised
animosity against the Tzar and his wife in a way nothing else could, Watson. It is a country drifting into serious danger and its rulers are frightened of their own shadows.’
‘You are not suggesting that Mrs Fordeland has been plotting bomb outrages?’ I asked.
‘No, Watson, but Count Skovinsky-Rimkoff and Major Kyriloff evidently believe that she can
embarrass their country in some way, and it has suffered enough embarrassment recently.’
