X
As soon as Sherlock Holmes and Watson felt they had fallen on something solid, they drew their revolvers and threw themselves on Compton and Alferakki. Those two, in their turn, thought there were only two in pursuit. So they, too, threw themselves at their adversaries. Several shots rang out.
But at this moment help arrived from above. Three policemen and the full complement of guards were already clambering through the aperture, rattling their arms.
The thieves realized the game was up as far as they were concerned. They fired a couple of shots at random, to stop their adversaries for half a minute, and threw themselves through the passageway in the wall, hoping to make their escape through the shop below.
Watson, wounded in the arm, fell with a groan.
Alferakki was already at the entrance, but Sherlock Holmes brought him down with a flying tackle, while a couple of soldiers piled on top of him.
Compton was less lucky. Lightly wounded in the leg when the shoot-out began, he fell behind his companion and for a moment was surrounded by his pursuers. Seeing that there was no way to save himself, he decided to sell his life dearly. With wild curses, he thew himself into the thick of his opponents and laid low two soldiers with three shots. But at this moment, one of the Centre’s watchmen, driven by the ferocity of what was happening, stuck a bayonet in his face. The blow was so fierce the bayonet went through his skull and he fell dead.
Alferakki was tied up. Guards were placed over the scattered money and a cashier assigned to count it. The criminal was led off to the police station.
The news of the attempt on the bank was all over the police station, and Sherlock Holmes was accorded a hero’s reception. Thanks were heaped on him.
The third member of the gang, the cashier Veskoff, was also brought to the police station. He had fainted, but a doctor had been summoned to bring him to, and when he was told how his partners-in-crime had intended to deal with him, he made a clean breast of things.
Alferakki and Veskoff were placed in shackles and led away to await trial.
The very same day, Sherlock Holmes stopped by to visit Terehoff at home. ‘Your old premises are available again and it is unlikely any apparition will appear,’ he said with a smile. ‘But you’ll have to repair the wall.’
And he told the merchant the whole story. The happy Terehoff instantly laid out the promised sum of money, saying he’d pay Watson too. And he hastened to the Commercial Centre.
XI
A search of Alferakki’s apartment only confirmed Holmes’s suppositions. A projector was found, tools and correspondence which led to a whole gang of criminals being apprehended.
But a search of Compton’s apartment led to an unexpected finding. The ‘poor’ Englishman had 60,000 roubles hidden in his mattress and proof that he was directly responsible for the theft of money from the bank in which he had been employed. The stolen money was returned to the bank, which presented three thousand roubles each to Sherlock Holmes and Watson as a reward.
Watson recovered from his wound in a matter of days.
And a month later, the police were able to establish the identity of Alferakki. It turned out that he was David Gabudidze, an escaped convict, a brutal robber, once the terror of the Caucasus.
7. THE MARK OF TADJIDI
P. Nikitin
I
The search for a major criminal brought Sherlock Holmes and me to Kazan. We spent approximately a month here, returning by way of a two-berth cabin on a boat owned by a company called ‘The Flying Service’. We intended to sail along the Volga as far as Yaroslavl and catch a train to Moscow from there. It was peaceful sailing on the river. The weather was good. We spent all our time on deck, admiring the beautiful shores of the Volga.
Sherlock Holmes grew more cheerful and his ill humour at times vanished. I looked at my friend and was glad for him from the bottom of my heart. Several days passed in this way.
The boat sailed past Nijni-Novgorod and a day later we arrived at Kostroma. Here we were to load a large cargo and the captain announced we could rely on being there a good two hours.
‘Would you like a stroll through the town, my dear Watson,’ Sherlock Holmes suggested as our boat was made fast.
I readily agreed and we set off. But there was nothing of interest there, and after we had strolled about less than an hour, we returned to the pier.
Here all was bustle. A score of stevedores, carrying heavy bales, filed aboard the boat, bearing cargo from the warehouse on the pier.
We stopped at the entrance to the warehouse and silently watched all this activity. Twenty minutes or so went by. A few words, suddenly uttered behind us, caused us to prick up our ears and turn our heads.
The foreman was talking to a representative of the shipping line, ‘—hasn’t been collected for a while. I turned up yesterday – terrible smell. Couldn’t figure out where it came from. Seemed to come from some corner … This morning I turned over the whole warehouse, all the baggage, and found—’
‘What was it?’ asked the representative of the shipping line.
‘It came from a basket,’ answered the foreman. ‘Unbearable stink. A large basket sent as baggage to Kostroma from Kazan. It was unloaded five days ago, but the recipient hasn’t collected it.’
‘Let’s take a look,’ grumbled the representative of the shipping line unhappily.
Some instinct pulled us after them, and we followed them into the warehouse. The stink was something awful.
The representative of the shipping line made a face and spat frantically. ‘The devil knows what it is,’ he swore. ‘Turf out this disgusting basket. It’s probably full of rotting meat. A formal protocol will have to be drawn up, the river police called in and it has to be thrown away. Be a good chap, get the river police.’
The foreman ran out and was back soon with several river policemen of different ranks. The shipping line representative announced that the basket contained putrid cargo, that it had made the air in the warehouse foul, and that the basket would have to be opened. Interested in the goings-on, we approached the group. The basket was untied and the lid taken off. A loathsome smell came from it.
Inside the basket, a bale was tightly wrapped in a heavy tarpaulin. The tarpaulin was cut away on three sides and lifted off. Everyone jumped back in horror.
A corpse, chopped into pieces, was packed into the tarpaulin. There was no doubt that it was a human corpse. A wrist, sliced away from the corpse, lay on top.
‘The devil!’ said Sherlock Holmes, approaching the basket. ‘A cargo that’s been around for a while.’
‘I’ll ask you to get the hell out of here,’ a police officer, just noticing us, threw the words at us somewhat fiercely.
‘And why not simply say, “leave”?’ said Holmes lightly.
Such simple words maddened the policeman, unused to being reproved.
‘Just you wait and I’ll have you down at the police station,’ he yelled, and for some reason opened his briefcase, as if about to prepare a charge sheet.
‘You’re quite in order to do so,’ answered Holmes calmly. ‘Would you like my name? Sherlock Holmes.’
