You should think you’re awfully lucky, Watson; and your encounters with the queen of spades are not accidental in any case. Don’t you remember the cause of Hermann’s (this was the name of the main character in the story) tragic end?

If I’m not mistaken, Watson, he was ruined by his passion to playing cards. Wait a minute, I remembered! Hermann was trying to learn some secret from an old woman – on what card one should put money for breaking the bank.

Yes, Watson, they played “faro” there, – Holmes started and added as for himself, – very strange title for a card game. Hermann, achieving the secret of three cards while sleeping, wins great sums of money, making stakes firstly on three, then on seven and…

Ace wins! – I cried out, alike the hero of the story, – but, as I remember, he’s got the queen of spades instead of ace. I begin to understand the roots of your interest to Pushkin. Again number 11, and again tragedy, but by now not of universal scale[16].

And now look at that, Watson.

Holmes appealed again to the “Post Historical Picnic” and pointed to a piece of text in the left upper corner of a picture, to the right of which there was a female sculpture, and under it – a figure, dealing with ancient Egypt.

Can you read it, Watson?

A map of some terrain, – I began, finding words slowly, to translate the title printed with thick letters. Then there was text in smaller type:

“Card game is the second … occupation in our country. The first place … Revolutions. Revolutions … upset the applecart, … game becomes more interesting, because without rules. Passing the time at cards, the most important thing – is to remember which … have left the game. We remind to players and revolution Eram[17], that this card[18] is already beaten”.

That’s approximately what it is, and more perfect translation I could do using the dictionary.

Having finished reading I glanced at Holmes curiously, giving to understand with all my appearance that I comprehended a little in this abracadabra written either as an instruction or some humorous admonition. But whom from and whom to, I wondered?

I feel the same embarrassment as you, Watson, and don’t wait for any explanations from me. I have a translation of this strange text, but I don’t show it to you, hoping that you will do it better, but only after more close acquaintance with the rebus. By now I only want to draw your attention to plenty of events, seemingly not interlinked in any way, but joint by the words with the root “pic”: “picnics” in “The New York Times”, “picnics” in “Chas Pick”, “Queen of Spades”[19] by Pushkin. Isn’t it too much of “pics”, dear Watson, especially remembering that a “chance” as understood by the author of “Queen of Picks” is a mighty and immediate tool of Providence and its appearance in people’s life can’t be understood without seeing the general current of events?

By now only one thing is clear to me: we should work out the role of numerical measure in the tragic events of “black Tuesday”[20]. I can’t promise an easy work, but I suppose that by joint efforts we’ll be able to achieve a success, if we’re persistent and patient sufficiently. It seems to me that for deciphering the last rebus which as far as I understand deals somehow with the tragedy in New York and Washington, we need to know the purpose of the first and the second “picnics”, and that’s why I’d like you, my friend, to speculate in your spare time on the materials I’ve collected. Here, – he handed his file to me, – besides enigmatic Russian “picnics”, is a selection of different reports from the press of all countries in the world. I think that these materials will help us to understand better the problems waiting to be solved.

Once an office worker in auditing firm “Ernst & Young”, where I have been working for the recent years as a consultant, showed me one Russian site in the Internet. Some curious works were found there, and I asked my Russian friends in London to translate some of them. Frankly speaking, they complained the complexity of these texts, especially when it was the question of theology. But two of those works, to my mind, very interesting, are placed in English translation on this site. They were printed and now lay in this file.

I’m sorry, Watson, but today I’m flying off for Zurich on affairs of the firm I’ve just told you. Probably, I will have to visit Spain, there’s not only a centre of our firm there but … also many people who know the history of Trotskyism well. The civil war in Spain is Trotskyites handiwork. It was not by accident, that Spanish judge Garson brought the lawsuit of Pinochet, who upset Marxist-Trotskyite planes in Chile by his putsch. I think that this voyage will take me about two or three weeks, and I hope that when I return, I’ll hear many interesting things from you.

Holmes shook my hand and was about to go, but suddenly stopped, glanced at me strangely and smiling enigmatically asked me:

I have one more question to you, Watson, as chess-player: what do you really think about all this?

Firstly I was bewildered, thinking, that Holmes again was ironical about my fascination with chess, and I even was going to answer him with one of jokes popular among chess-players. But then, watching his face, I found out, that the eyes of my friend were extremely serious and waited for unusual answer.

Gambit[21] … may be, – I articulated slowly the first words I’ve remembered, dealing with chess terminology, – … may be, the last gambit, – I added more confidently – yes, the last gambit of the second millennium passing by.

That’s very interesting solution, perhaps – final, – said Holmes as to himself only.

There was no smile on his face now, and his glance looking somewhere far away seemed to seek the elusive final solution.

And why, if Dr. Watson is right? – he suddenly addressed a question to someone who was absent among us, and, like summing up the long argument between him and unknown to me third person, finished, – Someone, concerning directly with the questions of global administration, sacrifices much, for having the result which goes much farther than any fantasies of contemporary man.

Holmes’s glance returned to the reality and he smiled to me again with his cunning smile.

That’s good, Watson. Our new investigation will go under the secret name of “The Last Gambit”. In my notebook computer I’ve collected much information on this case and from this moment the file with my notes on Russian “picnics” will carry the same name – “The Last Gambit”. And I advise you too to collect all your thoughts with regard to “picnics” and the papers I’ve given to you into the separate file.

Part II. Watson’s investigation

Evening. September 22. Russian “picnics”

In the afternoon Holmes left for Heathrow, and after dinner I occupied myself with his papers. Comforting myself in my old armchair, I took a leather file from the table and started to rummage through its content curiously. Notes – for the beginning. Some of them, the most brief, I will cite here.

Note №1. May 15, 1976. “Weekly news” reported that an obstetrician named Triplett had delivered triplets three times already.

Note №2. December 5, 1664, an English ship “Maney” drown in Pas de Calais; only one crewmember was saved, and his name was Hugo Williams. 121 years later on that very date, December 5, 1785, another ship has drowned in Irish Sea near Man Island. And only one sailor has survived, and his name was Hugo Williams.

Note №3. In 1883 some Texas scoundrel named Henry Siegland left his beloved; she couldn’t get through this and laid hands on herself. Her brother decided to take revenge on the offender. But the bullet he fired only rubbed Siegland’s face against and got stuck in the trunk of the tree. Siegland has fallen down on the ground, and the brother thinking that the revenge was complete shot himself immediately… 30 years later, in 1913, Siegland, still alive, was going to saw down the tree where the bullet has stuck. The tree was rather tough, and Siegland tried to explode it with dynamite. When he did so, the bullet fired out from the trunk and struck him in the head. The girl was revenged at last!