Alex Auswaks: Sherlock Holmes in Russia

I must have been long asleep while Holmes still pored over timetables and maps. And though he went to sleep after me, he was already at work when I woke up. His notebook, filled with a mass of notes, lay before him.

Seeing that I was awake, he nodded his head at me and said, ‘Get up, Watson. Today, we’re going for a little trip on a freight train.’

‘Now?’

‘No, we’ll spend the day examining the station and storerooms. In the evening, we’ll take a little trip beyond Lake Baikal and return tomorrow.’

It was an exhausting day. Sherlock Holmes examined the railway, warehouses, the railway station for freight trains, and drew the conclusion that the system was chaotic enough to make stealing mere child’s play. ‘It would be a miracle if there wasn’t any stealing,’ he said. ‘The first thing that hits you between the eyes is that none of the staff is in their appointed places. It’s a wonder that the station manager and district manager haven’t been stolen!’

‘Perhaps they are not worth stealing,’ I answered.

‘I quite agree, my dear Watson,’ said Holmes, laughing at this quip.

We took a nap after lunch and in the evening went to the railway station. The train conductors and the station staff in general didn’t know us yet, so we easily got the chief conductor of the freight train to let us ride first class round Lake Baikal for less than a rouble. Holmes deliberately rode as a passenger without a ticket, because a passenger without a ticket raised no suspicion.

At ten o’clock at night the train left. It was a dark night and the huge cliffs on our right added to the gloom. Vast Lake Baikal slept peacefully between its rocky shores. In the dark, they were nearly out of sight, except for the gleam of their dark steel reflection in the water.

The train climbed uphill, from time to time stopping at gloomy stations that looked like the lair of bandits, and diving in and out of tunnels.

We stood on one of the platforms at the rear of a carriage in the middle of the train, admiring the picture of a grim Siberian night. About three hours later we arrived at a small railway station. It was about 12.30 in the middle of the night.

Our legs were tired from standing or sitting still, so Sherlock Holmes suggested we stretch our legs along the station platform. Half the lights were out, probably for reasons of economy, and it was dark everywhere. We walked up and down waiting for the departure signal.

Suddenly, a loud male voice yelled in the darkness, ‘D’you hear, Burmistoff, send your locomotive to hell.’

‘I’m coming,’ answered a voice from the engine.

‘Come on, hurry, the vodka is waiting.’

‘But when will you let the train move on?’

‘When we’ve had enough to eat, that’s when I’ll let it go.’

The voices fell silent.

We went up to the locomotive and saw only the stoker inside.

‘When is the train departing?’ Holmes asked him.

‘Only after the engine driver has had his dinner,’ said the stoker imperturbably. ‘Didn’t you see him go off to dinner with the stationmaster?’

‘Did you hear that?’ muttered Holmes, confused and perplexed, when we had gone some way from the engine.

‘I did!’ I answered.

‘Is that what they call a timetable? Let’s see what happens now!’

It was a long wait. The engine driver took two hours over his dinner. Eventually, very unsteady on his feet, he emerged from the station house accompanied by an even more inebriated stationmaster.

‘—it’s those bastards, the correspondents, I fear,’ loudly resonated from the stationmaster, evidently concluding a conversation that had begun earlier. ‘Earlier on, that trash never bothered coming here, it being free-and-easy enough elsewhere. Then came the war and they were here one after another, like evil spirits.’

‘Ye-es,’ drawled the engine driver in his deep bass.

‘But most important, you didn’t know where such fellows are likely to pop up from,’ the stationmaster continued. ‘You even find ’em amongst the military! Turn up, sniff out and disappear.’

‘You should’ve pushed one of ’em under the wheels … like it was an accident.’

‘Brother, you won’t get hold of one of ’em. Too quick, and they always come on a passenger train. How can you tell ’em for what they are? Just as well they don’t rummage about on freight trains or we’d be back in no time on just our wages.’

‘Bloody swine!’ swore the engine driver.

They moved towards the locomotive.

‘How about one for the road?’ suggested the stationmaster. ‘A little cognac?’

‘Why not!’

‘Hey, there, Ivan,’ called out the stationmaster. ‘Cognac and glasses here!’

The two friends disposed themselves on the grass and a few minutes later started drinking again.

We hid behind a carriage and listened.

‘How many carriages did you take?’ we heard the voice of the stationmaster.

‘From Aberyantz?’ asked the driver.

‘Yes.’

‘Two,’ said the driver.

‘Did you get much?’

‘Twenty roubles each,’ answered the driver.

‘Ah, yes, he did complain to me about you. He said it’s robbery.’

‘Let him! The other day you showed me those carriages, so I ordered them to be uncoupled from the rest of the train. He noticed and came along. “Who gave orders to uncouple those carriages? They’re supposed to travel non-stop and they’ve been coming from Russia for all of four months. That’s a disgrace!” And on and on he went. So I tell him, “The train has to go uphill and is lugging too many carriages. The locomotive will never make it, so the hind carriages had to be uncoupled.” So that’s why he must’ve come to you.’

‘Yes! Yes! Well, I told him the driver knows best. He yelled and yelled, threatened to complain. But I know these merchant types. In the end he paid up.’

‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ laughed the driver.

‘What are you laughing about?’

‘I was thinking to myself, what would a merchant be prepared to pay for a carriage full of his goods and going at normal speed, to be delivered from Moscow to Harbin in China?’

‘I did try calculating it,’ said the stationmaster merrily. ‘According to my calculations, on top of the tariff, about two hundred roubles per carriage.’

‘It used to be more in war-time.’

‘Ye-es! I used to get up to a thousand. Let’s knock back a few more.’

‘Let ’im have it! Anyway, what we are getting should be enough!’

‘Tomorrow I’ll be making money out of Liu Pin Yuan’s freight cars,’ said the stationmaster.

‘Maintenance?’

‘Yes. I’ll tell him they’re out of order. I’ll tell him that they have to be taken to the depot, but the goods cannot be transferred as the seals were affixed in Moscow. A day or so on the alternate track and he’s bound to reach into his wallet. If he doesn’t, I’ll keep them there for a month!’

Both laughed merrily. The bottle gurgled. But half an hour later, the bottle must have been emptied and the inebriated engine driver, having farewelled his friend, clambered up into the locomotive.

The third bell sounded.

The train got under way with such a jerk Holmes and I nearly fell off the platform.

‘Nonetheless… hmm… riding these trains is more dangerous than chasing the most dangerous robbers,’ Sherlock Holmes complained.

The train went off in reckless flight. Carriages shook up and down and side to side as if they, too, were inebriated, and we had to hold on to the handrails for dear life, not to be shaken off the train.

‘Some way of doing things,’ Holmes went on complaining. ‘Any insurance company would be bankrupted if it were to insure trains and people from crashes. And what sort of administration have we here! How do you like it? To have your freight delivered in normal time, you have to hand out two hundred roubles in bribes alone.’