REGRET MR GREGORIEFF AND SISTER NO LONGER RESIDENT AT THIS ADDRESS
OR IN MY EMPLOY. BELIEVE THEM TO BE RETURNING TO RUSSIA.
AGATHA WORTLEY-SWAN
I passed it back when I had read it. ‘Why did you wire the interpreter?’ I asked.
‘I merely wished to warn him not to use his eccentric disguise again, since a description had been given to Scotland Yard, and to seek an opportunity to talk to him. I also wished to warn him of what he was suspected before he read it in this morning’s papers. In that I was evidently forestalled. He has already cut the slender thread which Scotland Yard might trace from him to Miss Wortley-Swan, which is a pity. It means we must pay a visit to Uncle.’
‘Uncle?’ I queried.
He nodded and set about applying marmalade to his toast. He was not, it seemed, going to elucidate. I tried another approach.
‘Are you not in danger of seeking to assist the escape of a wanted man?’ I asked.
‘If Gregorieff were wanted for a crime he had actually committed, Watson, that might cause me some concern. As it is, he has, so far as I know, committed no crime in London except dressing outrageously.
The crime for which Lestrade will seek him was not, as we know, Gregorieff’s work. Lestrade may feel obliged by his official position to kowtow to the Russian Embassy. I certainly do not.’
Whereupon he turned to discussing various items that had caught his eye in the morning papers, including a short and garbled account of the alleged shooting in Hyde Park which included a
description of the mysterious man in the striped blazer and bowler hat.
Breakfast done, Holmes invited me to accompany him on a visit to his uncle in the East End.
‘You have an uncle in the East End?’ I said, for I had never previously heard of such a relative. It was not impossible. I had known Sherlock Holmes for several years before he ever mentioned to me that he had an elder brother and that his brother was by way of being one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. I did not regard it as unlikely that there was another member of the family whom I had not previously met or heard of.
Holmes paused in walking out of the door and looked at me without expression. ‘Everybody,’ he said,
‘has an uncle in the East End, Watson.’
Like so many of my friend’s cryptic observations, it left me none the wiser, at least until our cab halted in a street near Jubilee Street and I saw the three gleaming brass balls of Saint Nicholas hanging outside a small shop.
‘Ah!’ I exclaimed. ‘A pawnbroker! Uncle’s!’
‘Precisely, Watson,’ was all my companion said as I followed him inside.
Inside, the shop was larger than its windows suggested, but most of the space was taken up with shelves and glass-fronted cabinets. It seemed that objects of every variety were displayed. There were racks of clothing, both men’s and women’s, in every style and condition from relatively shabby to almost brand-new; an entire case was full of mantelpiece clocks and another of pocket watches; a number of shelves displayed achievements of wax fruit under glass domes and cases with stuffed animals and birds; close to the ceiling, the gas lamps gleamed on the wondering glass eyes of an enormous stuffed white owl mounted on a perch.
There was only one customer at the counter as we entered, an enormously tall man with a broad back and a wide-brimmed hat which he held in one hand, revealing a thick head of greying hair.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Poliakoff,’ said the girl who stood behind the counter. ‘I think you have seen everything we have in that line. Perhaps you should leave it a week or so and we can see what comes in.’
‘Very well, my dear,’ he said, turning from the counter. ‘I will leave it awhile.’
Despite his gigantic size, his fiercely curled moustaches and wide beard, he nodded affably enough to Holmes and me as he passed us in the cluttered space of the shop and went to peruse the display cases behind us as Holmes stepped up to the counter.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ asked the pretty, oval-faced young woman who served in the shop. ‘Were you wanting to leave something with us, or perhaps you were looking for something in particular.’
‘I was looking,’ said Holmes, ‘for another of these. I wonder if you have one.’
He had taken an object from his coat pocket and now laid it on the marble countertop. I could see that it was a silver medallion attached to a brightly coloured ribbon, but I did not recognize it and I wondered what part in Holmes’ scheme it played.
The young lady picked up the medal and examined it. ‘I do not know,’ she said, ‘if we have one. I’m afraid that I know little of medals, but my father, he knows all about them. Let me ask if he will see you.’
She drew back a curtain behind her and stepped into a small hallway, calling, ‘Father! There is a gentleman here about a medal. Will you see him?’
From somewhere a voice rumbled in what seemed to be a foreign language, and the young lady turned back to us.
Opening a hinged section of the counter, she showed us into the curtained hallway at the rear and pointed out a flight of stairs.
‘My father’s office is at the top,’ she said, ‘right opposite the stairs. The door will be open for you. I am sorry I cannot show you up, but I must not be away from the shop.’
We thanked her and climbed up the stairs to the top landing, where a pool of light was thrown from an open door. Inside, a plump, balding man with a small beard and neat moustache sat at a wide desk. He wore thick, small half-round spectacles, through which he was peering at an array of small jewellery set out on a black velvet cloth in front of him. He looked up as we entered and the lamplight flashed across his spectacles.
‘Mr Holmes!’ he exclaimed. ‘Mr Holmes! What a pleasure! Come in, please, and you must be the Dr Watson who writes the stories about Mr Holmes. Be seated, gentlemen, be seated.’
He waved us both to chairs in front of his desk and wrapped away the jewellery in its cloth, slipping it into a desk drawer and turning a key on it.
When he had done, he adjusted his spectacles and looked from one to another of us. ‘Now, gentlemen,’
he said, ‘how can I be of service to you? It is not, I take it, a medal that interests you?’
‘The medal,’ said Holmes, smiling, ‘was, as always, in case you were not at your own counter. When last I called you had a young man here. Now I see you have an attractive young woman.’
‘The young man? Ah, yes, he wanted to see the world. I told him stay here, I said, all the world passes through here sooner or later, but he must go. So now my daughter helps me. I have told her about the man with a strange medal, so that she knew what to do.’
It dawned on me that the medal was a device whereby Holmes could avoid hinting at his business with the pawnbroker in front of a customer or to the assistant. It occurred to me also that I had known Sherlock Holmes for most of twenty years, yet he could still surprise me by revealing another of the many contacts he had in all parts of the metropolis.
Holmes had reached into his pocket and produced what I recognized as the envelope delivered to him on the previous day. Its top had been slit and he withdrew from it two cards. When he laid them on the pawnbroker’s desk I saw that they were both photographs, not of the clearest focus but both easily recognizable as the Russian interpreter, Gregorieff.
Our host moved a lamp, so that its light fell fully on the photographs, and bent over them. He looked at them silently for a minute or so.
‘What is it that you wish to know, Mr Holmes?’ he asked as he looked up.
‘I wish to know anything at all about the man in those pictures,’ said Holmes. ‘I know what and who he claims to be, but I am certain that he has not told me all of the truth and maybe none of it.’
The old man nodded. ‘I know him,’ he said. ‘I have done business with him, but perhaps what he tells me is no more true than what he tells you.’
‘Perhaps not,’ agreed Holmes, ‘but others will have talked about him. You lend them money, you cash their cheques from home, you help them. They all talk to you. You are their friend. Even if this man has not told you the truth, someone will have given you a hint, some comment made, some remark
dropped.’
