“Actually,” said Lestrade, “the Assistant here is a difficult fellow to lay hands on. He’s a walking contradiction, he is. A former policeman in Petersburg who now wants nothing to do with the police - nothing, that is, except when we pay him for his information.”
The man continued to stand at attention.
“I must say,” Lestrade rattled on, “that he’s actually provided some helpful tips about criminal goings-on among our London Russkies.”
The man removed his hat. “Iss enough I tell you what you want,” said he to Lestrade with a snarl. He spoke competent English with a thick Russian accent. “More I not wish to do.”
“How much does he know about the murders in Brick Lane?” I asked. “Has he even heard about the pawnbroker?”
At the word “pawnbroker”, the Assistant looked at me.
“Here, then,” said Lestrade, catching the movement as well. “Do you know something about the death of the pawnbroker, Samuel Gottfried?”
“Gottfried?” repeated the Russian. “I give him pledge from time to time. Not lately.”
“Didn’t happen to see him Monday night then?” Lestrade asked.
“Not for months have I seen him. I know nothing about murder.”
“So you say,” Lestrade replied slowly, his manner of dragging out the words suggestive of his scepticism.
Sensing a connection to Dostoevsky, I was more direct. “What about the story of the murdered pawnbroker and her sister in St Petersburg twenty years ago?” I asked. “Two women killed with an axe and robbed.”
The Assistant shrugged his shoulders. “Iss long time. I forget old cases.”
Perhaps he had indeed forgotten an old case. At the same time, I wondered that he had not refuted the axe-murders as fiction.
“I work hard as policeman in Russia. On my hat, I wear - how do say? - cockade of officer; and still they sack me. Too angry, they tell me. Where is justice?”
“But do you not see a similarity between a murdered pawnbroker in St Petersburg and the murdered pawnbroker in this current case?” I was nothing if not persistent.
He shrugged once more. “Coincidence.”
Coincidence-the Assistant’s use of the word was itself a coincidence. For when Raskolnikov is still in the planning stages of his crime, he overhears someone talking about the benefits of killing the very same pawnbroker Raskolnikov has made his target.
To be sure, hearing that conversation truly is coincidental; but believing the words to be some sort of sign, Raskolnikov convinces himself that he should actually go ahead and commit the awful deed. After all, had Providence not been on his side, had the Fates not been interested, he obviously would have encountered no such reinforcement of his plan. In his own twisted way, Raskolnikov trusts that he is carrying out some greater design.
“Come round Scotland Yard in a day or two,” Lestrade said to the Assistant. “Once we go through all the pledges that the pawnbroker held at the time of his death - that is, the ones that were not stolen - we’ll be returning the items to those who come to claim them. Put the word out to everyone you know who used his services.”
“I already tell you,” the Assistant replied, “no pledges to Gottfried now.” Then, “Can I go?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Lestrade, and without another word, the Russian left - “escaped” might be a better term - and fairly bounded down the stairs. The outer door slammed shut with a resounding bang.
“I’ll be taking my leave as well,” said Lestrade. Before exiting, however, he turned to ask, “Any word from Holmes?”
I answered in the negative, and then it was Lestrade’s turn to lumber down the stairs. Only this time, the outer door closed without a sound.
Chapter Six: Dust to Dust
On the same Wednesday evening that Lestrade and I were quizzing the Russian informer, no less a personage than Rabbi Nathan Adler, the venerable Chief Rabbi of the Great Synagogue at Duke’s Place, requested the bodies of Mr and Mrs Gottfried from Scotland Yard for burial the next day.
“The Superintendent agreed straight away,” Lestrade informed me with a derisive laugh. “I mean, we knew what killed them, didn’t we? No need to waste time examining the corpses.”
The bodies were released late Wednesday night and prepared for burial the following morning. It was Lestrade’s idea to attend the service, and he invited me to come along. “You never know who might show up,” said he, suddenly sounding very much the expert detective. “You never know who might take extraordinary interest in the murders. Some killers like to view the results of their handiwork.”
Thursday broke dark and wet, a penetrating rain drumming on the roof of the police van, which Lestrade had commandeered to retrieve me at Baker Street. Within minutes we were circling the east side of Regent’s Park and then continuing north by way of Seven Sisters Road to the Edmonton Cemetery some eight miles from the East End murder scene.
An hour later we were trundling through the cemetery’s open gates marked on both sides by a pair of red-brick columns, each surmounted with a large Star of David. The cemetery had opened only a few years before, and swards of green lawn still remained unmarked by the countless gravestones inevitably destined to fill the landscape.
A protective white canopy had been set up for the Gottfrieds’ funeral though what had softened to a thin rain eased to a gentle mist before the service began and ceased completely minutes later. Standing on the wet grass within in a copse of beech trees, Lestrade and I kept ourselves out-of-sight. We were close enough to distinguish words like “kind” and “caring” in the eulogy and the plaintive melodies of the prayers the rabbi was offering up. The prayers were in Hebrew, of course, and beyond our understanding; and yet the lugubrious chants conveyed the shared sadness of the people pressing close to the two open graves.
In addition to the rents in their
