‘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.’
I recalled the calamity at Khodynka Meadow, when a festival meant to celebrate Tzar Nicholas’
coronation had turned into a tragedy as thousands were killed or injured in the crush. The Tzar’s wife had been blamed for appearing at a French
Embassy ball on that night, and the people of Russia were already calling her ‘the German bitch’.
‘There is another matter which confuses me,’ I said.
‘Which is?’ enquired Holmes.
‘If you are right - and I’m sure you are - that Gregorieff is Mrs Fordeland’s bearded man, she described him to us as often strangely dressed. I recall that she mentioned a striped blazer and a bowler hat. Yet Gregorieff appeared to us in perfectly ordinary garb, such as any respectable man might wear on a summer afternoon. Nor did he wear his false beard and his padding.’
‘Aha!’ exclaimed Holmes. ‘So you were not asleep throughout the interview! Well done, Watson. Still, I have to point out that he might have changed his disguise on the train from London.’
‘So he might,’ I agreed, ‘but there was no bag in the hall.’
‘Very observant of you,’ he said, ‘but you have forgotten that his sister went upstairs immediately they arrived. She might well have removed a small bag containing the necessary items.’
‘True,’ I said, ‘but on the occasion that you pursued him from Baker Street, you gave him no
opportunity to change. Surely he did not arrive back in Burriwell in his peculiar costume?’
‘But he did have an opportunity to change,’ said Holmes. ‘At Victoria I heard him take a ticket to Burriwell. We both boarded the local train, as today a non-corridor train. I certainly took the opportunity to adopt my clerical disguise in my compartment. I cannot say that he did not do the reverse, for I did not see him alight. I simply enquired about foreigners in the village, which led me to his address.’
I nodded, believing that my infant theory had been stifled. ‘Then you think that he sets out in ordinary clothing, but changes on the train?’ I asked.
Holmes shook his head. ‘I did not say so. It would be impractical. In the first place he could not guarantee always having a compartment by himself, unless he reserved one, which would draw