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Darka was the pet cat of Nikolina Pavlova.
A stowaway's stowaway[]
- Main article: The Adventure of the Unbreakable Speckled Band
When Nikolina Pavlova fled from her ballet company aboard the SS Burya, she brought Darka with her, smuggled inside her trunk. Darka was not used to the new environment at the cabin in which Pavlova would stay, and suddenly scratched her and jumped into an air vent while Pavlova was feeding her some milk, ending up in the neighbouring cabin. Pavlova tried to lure her back using a cat toy, to no avail.
Pavlova went to the other cabin, where its occupant, Kazuma Asogi, helped find Darka. However, he also recognized her. Pavolva grew fearful that Asogi would call on someone else and expose her secret, and pushed him in a panic. Asogi slipped after stepping on a bell worn by Darka, breaking it in two, leaving a dark shoe stain, and fell to the floor. Bif Strogenov heard the noise and headed to the cabin, where Pavlova explained what had happened. Finding a stowaway, Ryunosuke Naruhodo, inside Asogi's wardrobe, Strogenov decided to alter the scene to frame him. Among the measures that he took was to find half of a bell worn by Darka, and dispose of it in the wastepaper basket in Pavlova's cabin, failing to find the other half in the darkness.
Asogi was found lifeless the next morning, and Herlock Sholmes investigated what he called "this curious murder". Pavlova remained inside her cabin while Naruhodo and Sholmes continued to investigate the incident. Because pets were forbidden on the ship, Pavlova made an effort to hide Darka's presence, not allowing any visitors from looking around her cabin, and storing the cat inside a travelling case. This was in vain, however, as she left a photograph of her and Darka out in the open, and Darka would move around from within the travelling case.
This all came to a head when Sholmes questioned Pavlova about the identity of her pet, who had escaped the travelling case at that point, and was nowhere to be seen. Pavlova involuntarily glanced at the photograph, but Sholmes mistakenly claimed that she had glanced toward a snake wrapped around Bif Strogenov's head. However, Naruhodo correctly identified the photograph, as well as the bell whose halves were now curiously in separate cabins. This eventually led to the conclusion that Asogi had broken his neck after slipping on Darka's bell. Pavlova tried to "admit" that this had all been an accident, but the halves of the bell being in separate cabins helped to reveal the true story.
Name[]
- Japanese/English - Kuroppoi (黒っぽい)/Darka:
- Her Japanese name "Kuroppoi" (黒っぽい) means "blackish" or "dark" in Japanese, in reference to the color of her fur.
- Her English name "Darka" is likely a play on "dark". Darka is a Slavic name meaning "gift".[1]