the interests of the Tzar.’
‘I accept your reasoning, Mr Holmes, but I cannot fathom why I should be of interest to the Tzar or his minions in London,’ said our guest. ‘I have told you, it was nearly twenty years ago that I was in Russia. Why have they not followed me in America or in Canada if they believe me in some way
important?’
‘That,’ said my friend, ‘is one of the several mysteries which surround this matter. The Tzar’s intelligence service reaches deep into the heart of the United States and the British Empire. If you are of interest because of some connection with your Russian travels or the articles arising from it, then it would have been easy to track you down in America or Canada, but they have not done so. It seems that it is your presence in London that draws their interest.’
He lit a cigarette and smoked for a few minutes, gazing thoughtfully out of the window.
‘Tell me,’ he said, swivelling suddenly back to our client, ‘have you made any secret of the reasons why you are in London?’
The lady smiled. ‘Heavens no!’ she exclaimed. ‘Quite the opposite. One or two newspapers have carried items recalling that I was the English governess to the King of Mongkuria and wrote a book about it, and they have said that I am here to see the Jubilee ceremonies and to meet with King Chula.’
‘And King Chula’s country is of little interest to Russia,’ said Holmes. ‘It might well interest France or Holland, and the King’s invitation to the Diamond Jubilee is evidence of our own interest in his sphere, but I cannot imagine that the Russians have any realistic interest in that region. Nevertheless, of one thing I am certain, Mrs Fordeland, and that is that both pairs of your pursuers are Russian.’
‘Both pairs?’ repeated our client. ‘Do you then recognize either of the second pair?’
He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The woman seems to have Slavic features, but the man’s face is so concealed by his whiskers that it is difficult to tell.’
‘I had thought while I was trying to draw him that his face, insofar as one can see it, seemed Russian, but perhaps it was a slight resemblance to an interpreter I met in Russia. But you are certain, Mr Holmes?’
‘That the man is Russian? Yes,’ he said.
My friend slipped his fingers into his coat pocket and drew out a twist of paper.
‘When I ran into the street,’ he said, ‘your watcher had dropped his cigarette and started to make off towards the cab rank by Tussauds. The hot weather and the Jubilee visitors to London meant that there was a shortage of cabs and he was able to make good his escape from me by taking the only vehicle on the rank. At that point I abandoned my pursuit and returned here, but I paused to recover the remains of his cigarette.’
He unrolled the twist of paper and revealed that it contained a cigarette end and a little heap of ash, which he carefully shook out on to a sheet of white paper.
‘Expertise in the varieties of tobacco is a subject that is stupidly ignored by many professional detectives,’ he commented. ‘Watson will tell you that I have published a small text on the subject.’ He spread the ash with his forefinger and took his lens from his pocket. ‘As I suspected,’ he said, as he examined the ash with the lens, ‘this is a coarse mixture of a dark Russian tobacco and a more mellow Turkish. That alone is not enough for our purposes, but this, I think, makes my case.’
He used his thumbnail to split the cigarette end’s paper. It revealed not tobacco, but a crude tube made from a piece of card. Holmes straightened it with his fingers.
‘The card is merely a piece of an advertisement,’ he said, ‘and is unimportant. Its significance lies in its application. Whoever made this cigarette - and I think we may reasonably infer that it was your bearded follower - inserted the cardboard tube to cool the strong tobacco. That is a Russian practice. Evidently he can purchase suitable tobaccos in Britain, but not the Russian cigarettes which include such a tube.’
‘It establishes,’ he continued, ‘beyond reasonable doubt, that both pairs of watchers are Russians. The first pair, we know, come from the Russian Embassy. This second pair seem more like the Russian Socialists who gather in the East End. The presence of Major Kyriloff and such a pair implies Russian political affairs, but you have said nothing which suggests any such involvement, Mrs Fordeland.’
‘Nor is there!’ she exclaimed. ‘Even while I was in that country I observed the proprieties of my status as a reporter and did not intervene in their politics. It is true that I have certain sympathies for some ideals of the Socialists and Anarchists who oppose the Tzar’s tyranny, but I detest their habits of bomb-throwing and assassination. You may be assured, Mr Holmes, that whatever this is all about has nothing to do with Russian politics.’
Sherlock Holmes nodded, thoughtfully. ‘So,’ he said, ‘we have identified two agents of the Tzar and, possibly, two of his opponents. My brother Mycroft has connections with those whose business it is to know what Major Kyriloff is up to, and I shall ask his assistance. As to the other two, since we cannot identify them, we must strive to do so, and I believe that is best done by setting a simple trap.’
Three
Holmes Sets a Trap
One of the most astonishing abilities of my friend Sherlock Holmes was the capacity to predict the future course of events with remarkable accuracy, having drawn inferences from facts and indications that others, including myself, had ignored. Nevertheless, in the matter of Mrs Fordeland’s followers he was, I believe, nonplussed by the outcome of his plan to identify the bearded man and his companion.
The ‘trap’ was, in itself, perfectly reasonable and simple. On the morning following our first meeting with our client, she was to leave her granddaughter with friends and take a cab to Baker Street. Her retinue of watchers would, inevitably, assume that she was taking a second consultation with Holmes, but that was not so.
On her arrival at our rooms, I was awaiting the lady, but Holmes was not. My friend, clad in one of his impenetrable disguises, was already seated in a closed cab a little distance along the street.
Mrs Fordeland assured me that, as her cab had turned into Baker Street, the following vehicle, carrying Major Kyriloff and his colleague, had dropped back. They had evidently drawn the expected
conclusion and were most probably lying in wait at the bottom of the street.
A second cab brought the other two Russians. The bearded man alighted in Baker Street and took up a position across the street from 221b, where he loitered and rolled a cigarette.
Mrs Fordeland and I took a cup of tea and chatted, for long enough to give our watcher across the street confirmation that another consultation with Holmes was taking place. When we believed that a
sufficient time had passed, we left together and I escorted the lady to the cab rank by Tussauds.
The ruse worked admirably. Our bearded follower fell in behind and, when we took a cab, jumped into one which had been waiting, and Mrs Fordeland and I set out for her hotel with both pairs of Russians following us at a discreet distance and Holmes following the second pair.
Arrived at the lady’s hotel, a discreet glance from the window assured us that, while Major Kyriloff’s colleague was still maintaining a position outside, the bearded man and his companion had taken their cab away, followed, I had no doubt, by Sherlock Holmes.
I had expected that my friend would follow the watchers to their lair and return fairly shortly, to report that they were denizens of one of those East End boarding houses which were, at that time, often full of refugees from and plotters against the Tzar’s regime. Rather to my surprise, Holmes was gone for much of the day.
As we awaited his return, the lady and I took luncheon together, during which she regaled me with many amusing and extraordinary anecdotes culled from her years of travel in the East and in Australia, America and Canada. As I expected, from reading her books some years earlier, she was an
accomplished narrator, with an observant eye, a good memory and a strong sense of humour, so that our meal and much of the afternoon passed very pleasantly.
So it was that it was tea time before I began seriously to wonder at my friend’s absence. Mrs Fordeland expressed concern that the persons he had followed might have seen through his disguise and waylaid him. I was able to assure her that Sherlock Holmes disguised was totally unrecognizable and that he was well provided against harm by the extreme quickness of his wits, his training in bare-knuckle fighting and his ability in swordplay and baritsu. I diverted her fears with a number of anecdotes of occasions when Holmes’ disguises had proved impenetrable even to me.
We were taking our tea in the hotel’s conservatory when a waiter approached and told Mrs Fordeland that there was a clergyman in the lobby asking for her and saying that he had a message for her.
