But we had hardly gone five or six miles from the mine when Holmes ordered the coachman to turn off at the next crossroad, and a quarter of an hour later we were deep in the thick coniferous forests of the taiga.
‘Let him get ahead of us,’ Holmes explained. ‘An attack from the rear invariably works better. We’ll fall upon him as soon as he gets to the first post house to change horses. I doubt if an ordinary but carefully conducted search won’t produce the requisite results.’
We spread out felt matting, wrapped ourselves in warm blankets and slept the night in he forest. We rose with the dawn. The sun had most probably already risen, but in the deep gloom of the taiga it was still dark.
VI
Our bivouac, which gave all the appearance of a robber encampment, was a mere two or three hundred paces from the main road. Every little sound would penetrate the deathly silence of the taiga, more so the rumble of wheels and the beat of horses’ hoofs. We left our horses behind and the three of us crouched behind bushes, near enough to see anything moving along the highway.
Everything was quiet till one in the afternoon, but then my ears detected some sort of sounds in the distance. I glanced at Holmes. He was already on the alert. The sounds increased in volume until, at last, the rumble of wheels and the beat of hoofs increased in volume.
A few minutes and a troika, the carriage driven by three horses, sped past.
The coachman was on the coach box. The manager inside. He had flung himself back in his seat, apparently dozing away as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He didn’t even look in our direction. Looking at him, nobody would imagine a man with anything but a clear conscience.
When his carriage had passed us a mile or so, Holmes threw himself into ours, motioning for us to follow. We sped in the path of the vanished manager, afraid we wouldn’t catch him in time at the next post house where he would change horses.
Mile after mile flashed past. Our troika made a sharp turn and through the forest we spied the post house. With horror we saw that the manager’s troika had nearly completed the change-over of horses. Another minute and we would have lost him, but just in time, as his coachman was clambering up to take his seat, our troika, horses foaming at the mouth from exertion, drew up beside him.
‘Mr Manager, I must detain you for just a minute,’ said the mine guard, approaching him.
‘Is anything the matter?’ asked the manager in surprise. And turning towards us, he said jovially, ‘I never thought I’d overtake you! Wherever did you get stuck? Surely not in the taiga!’
‘I’m afraid we got slightly involved in hunting,’ said Holmes.
‘And that is to be commended. At least the mine guard will be able to carry out his errand.’ The sentence was uttered with the deliberate intention of delivering a little sting. A malevolent look appeared for a moment in his eyes. ‘Now, sir, I am all ears,’ he turned to the mine guard.
‘Permit me to search you.’
‘Me!’ The manager burst out laughing. ‘Do you really still think that I am carrying away my employers’ gold. In any case—’ He shrugged. ‘The laws of the taiga are rough, and anyone who has fallen into it must be reconciled to them. Do your duty, sir. I am at your service.’ He and the mine guard went into the post house.
‘Oh, what a rogue!’ Sherlock Holmes exclaimed merrily. ‘I am prepared to wager anything that he guessed our identity all along. He’s laughing in my face.’
‘So I see,’ I said.
And as if to confirm our words, the manager suddenly sprang out of the post house. ‘Gentlemen, aren’t you joining us? No need to carry on with your comic act, no need to conceal your real profession. Do come in, Messrs Detectives!’ he yelled at us.
‘If that is so, of course, there is no need for us to hide who we are,’ said Holmes with a smile. ‘Come along, Watson.’
We went in and began the search. But Seltzoff had absolutely nothing except for a cotton-lined heavy coat whose pockets were empty and a suit in whose pockets all we found was a wallet and a few letters.
We went outside. We ransacked his entire carriage, the suitcase and the bundles. A feather would not have escaped us. But, despite all our efforts, we found nothing. There was no gold.
Holmes took me aside and said softly, ‘My dear Watson, there’s one place which we haven’t looked at so far.’
‘And that is—’
‘It could very well be that the gold is in the axle or the shafts, or sealed inside the carriage walls. But it has been hidden so craftily that no outward inspection will reveal its presence. Somehow or other we must deprive him of his carriage and see how he reacts to that.’
‘That shouldn’t be too difficult. Break the axles and wheels.’
‘Hmm, that’s not too subtle,’ answered Holmes. ‘It must be done in a way that is not apparent. I’ll take him inside the post house. Let the mine guard take over. He must order the coachman to break down somewhere along the way.’ He thought for a moment and added, ‘Towards which end, it would help to saw through the axle just a little.’
VII
Saying this, he left me and walked towards Seltzoff. Seltzoff followed his movements with irony in his eyes. Holmes asked him to return with him to the post house, leaving me alone with the mine guard.
Left one-on-one with this keeper of law and order, I passed Holmes’s instructions to him. He nodded his head to signal his willingness, called over Seltzoff’s coachman and began to explain to him what had to be done.
For my part, I promised the coachman a reward of fifty roubles if he could bring the manager’s carriage into a state of utter disrepair and explained that this was being done for the good of his employers. Needless to say, the coachman readily agreed to everything. ‘There is a steep incline not far from here and where it turns there is a mileage pillar,’ he said. ‘Ride into it at full tilt and the carriage will disintegrate.’
I got a little saw out of my suitcase and quickly filed under both axles. A few minutes later Holmes and Seltzoff emerged. Holmes apologized for having caused him so much inconvenience and did it with such patent sincerity that the mine guard and I couldn’t believe our ears. He even appeared to have made friends with the manager.
We all sat down to breakfast together, drank a bottle of champagne and decided to drive to Irkutsk together. We stowed away our luncheon baskets, took our seats in our respective carriages and set off. Seltzoff went ahead and we followed. Sherlock Holmes never took his eyes off the troika ahead of us. And now, at last, the steep incline the coachman had told us about appeared.
As soon as we got to the top of the incline, the horses of the leading troika began to play up. No matter how hard the coachman tried, he couldn’t control them. The sweating horses reared up and raced down. Seltzoff was terrified. But he leaped up, seized and pulled at the reins of the horse on the left. This worked somewhat. Their pace lessened but was still somewhat strong.
The coachman panicked as the troika flew towards the mileage pillar. But just before the mileage pillar he apparently came to himself. The troika zigzagged. The horses escaped the impending disaster, but not the carriage. There was the sound of a terrible crack. The horses came to a halt. The coachman went flying head over heels off his seat. Seltzoff was thrown on the back of one of the horses.
‘Bloody idiot!’ he exclaimed angrily getting off. ‘Thank heavens they are right behind us, otherwise what would we do between two post houses!’ He was walking round his coach, shaking his head in distress.