Part IV. Holmes and Watson Again Saturday morning. October 13. London
The Last Gambit · перевод (English) · раздел 14 из 17
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Part IV. Holmes and Watson Again Saturday morning. October 13. London
In an hour or so Holmes was already in a living room, where Watson was finishing his breakfast, while Mrs. Hudson in her tightly starched white apron, trying to conceal her gladness under the customary grumbling, bustled about the tenant who returned from the long journey.
– And whoever, Mr. Holmes, makes you wander about the wide world? Can’t you sit still at home? Instead you sit in the airplane’s armchair for the whole night. And what for?… No, no, I don’t feel like that. I don’t like all these “Boeings”, especially now, when they’re constantly falling now on the ground, now in water.
– And that’s exactly what I want to understand, Mrs. Hudson, why they fall down. And, you know, one can sleep in the airplane too, if he is not disturbed. I had two spare armchairs beside me, and I was having quite good rest till Frankfurt.
Holmes indeed looked fresh and animated.
– Well, dear Watson, “picnics” really travel along the wide world.
– Let you better tell us about your adventures, Holmes. I have a feeling, that you have visited half of the Earth globe in these three weeks.
– Holmes looked in the window with the customary London rain behind it, and his face lit up with the contented smile.
– You might have missed our rains and fogs, haven’t you, Mr. Holmes? -Mrs. Hudson asked.
– I remembered at once, that when I went down the boarding ramp of “Boeing” at Heathrow, I thought: “What a good big conditioner for the whole good old England!”
Holmes coped with his breakfast quickly, and we settled in his study, where Mrs. Hudson brought coffee for us. Having got his pipe lighted, Holmes started to tell his story, with some inner guardedness unusual for him before.
– The first adventure happened at Zurich airport. While passing visa control, I noticed one passenger from the flight from Frankfurt am Main. It’ better to say, not the passenger, but the newspaper he held in his hands.
Holmes put rather creased newspaper on the desk. It was “Izvestiya”, September 22, №175.
– Yes, Holmes, I understand, why you noticed it.
– You’re absolutely right, Watson, its number is the same as the number of the flight of “Boeing- 767”, which attacked the southern tower of WTC, and - naturally - the date when this newspaper was published - September 22. You know, Watson, I noticed this numerical accordance almost automatically, and the incident might finish on it, if this unknown to me passenger hadn’t passed through passport control several minutes earlier than me. Having got my luggage, I was hurrying to the exit, where Switzerland representative of our firm, Louis Renier, was waiting for me, but suddenly my glance stopped at some armchair in the waiting room, and there that very newspaper, carelessly thrown, which I paid my attention several minutes ago, lied. How do you think, Watson, what did I think?
– The most probable, that the same thing can’t catch one’s eye twice in the senseless fuss of airport.
– Of course, Watson, you’re right. And still, some time I was hesitating, like Buridan’s ass, - should I take it? Or not? And may be, I didn’t take it finally, if it wasn’t for the photo in the upper corner of the first page.
Holmes pointed on the page of the newspaper, where the photo of smiling Anna Kurnikova, Russian tennis player, was placed.
– Dear Watson, doesn’t it remind you something?
– I think - nothing. Well… the next model is promoted, and if she will be in porno- or “haute couture” - it’s not that important…
– The same question I asked Louis Renier, who met me there, and he only shrugged his shoulders in respond.
– I can add only, that this “lass” has nothing to do with chess surely.
– And, Watson, translate please the inscriptions under the photo, may be, they will suggest you something?
– “Anna Kurnikova. The long-awaited foreshortening”. And some below - the title of the article: “Nothing personal”, with short explanation of the theme - “American Playboy wants to shoot Russian beauty”. I understand, what you mean, dear Holmes, but my intuition says me nothing about how this maiden can be connected with the “picnics”.
– Well, and the title of lead article? May be, it can suggest something to your intuition, Watson?
– “The twilights of freedom”, “American tragedy may bury the democracy”, - slowly, as a schoolboy, I translated the titles of the lead article, continuing to study the photo of pretty tennis player and repeating the inscriptions under the photo in my thoughts.
Holmes was right, this lass reminded me someone indeed, but… I hadn’t any models for “Playboy” among my acquaintances. But among others… no, this can’t be true! I was seized again by some strange feeling, as like after the dinner with Galba in the bar of “Woldorf” hotel.
– It seems to me, Holmes, that I remembered her; this is Aphrodite Beautifully-rumped.
– How did you say, Watson? Beautifully-rumped? But this girl has her back, not rump, naked.
– Yes, I’m sure, - more confidently, like at the exam, I continued, - this is Aphrodite Callipyga, which means “Beautifully-rumped” in Greece. Her statue stands in the National Museum of Naples, and in ancient times she was especially worshipped in Syracuse. The picture of this statue is in the right upper corner of the “Post Historical Picnic”, like the picture of Kurnikova in “Izvestiya”. In the “picnic” Aphrodite Beautifully-rumped is represented with the placard “Free Russia - free love!” and here - “The twilights of freedom”. What do you think, Holmes?
– I see, Watson, you did a good job with the pictures of Russian rebus. But let us keep some order, and later we’ll return to this newspaper, if we find the answer on the question “What can we think about it?”
Speaking this, Holmes turned on his notebook computer, took a floppy-disk, recorded some file on it and then handed it to me.
– There’s a file on this floppy-disk, which is called “The Last Gambit”, as we together decided three weeks ago. All my meetings and conversations with people in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Spain, Egypt, India, I tried to record in this file, as much as possible. By the way, it helped me to work on the new information, which sometimes had rather sudden sources. I hope, Watson, that you have similar recordings too, and I feel ready to get acquainted with them. Let’s agree that today we will have a rest, exchange some general impressions, and read the file of “The Last Gambit”, and tomorrow we will start the work on the “picnics” right from the morning. I have here the copies of some newspapers and notes, which I got from the people with whom I have been talking. But before you start reading my recordings, Watson, I’d want you to get acquainted with this note, which was given to me by a very interesting man in Cairo. The recording of conversation with him is on this floppy. I think that this note is especially interesting for us, as we go in for this activity.
I brought my notes to Holmes and left him, for he needed a rest after the long trip, returned to my room and occupied myself with reading the note from Egypt. It seemed to me so unusual and really significant for our long activity with Holmes, and I decided to quote it here entirely, with all commentaries and footnotes by unknown authors from Russia.