The House of Silk

‘You can investigate her.’

‘It is none of my business, Miss Carstairs.’

Eliza Carstairs gazed at him with contempt. ‘I have read of your exploits, Mr Holmes,’ she replied. ‘And I have always considered them to be exaggerated. You yourself, for all your cleverness, have always struck me as someone with no understanding of the human heart. Now I know that to be true.’ And with that, she wheeled round and went back into the house.

Holmes watched her until the door had closed. ‘Most singular,’ he remarked. ‘This case becomes increasingly curious and complex.’

‘I have never heard a woman speak with such fury,’ I observed.

‘Indeed, Watson. But there is one thing I would particularly like to know, for I am beginning to see great danger in this situation.’ He glanced at the fountain, at the stone figures and the frozen circle of water. ‘I wonder if Mrs Catherine Carstairs is able to swim?’

FOUR The Unofficial Police Force

Holmes slept in late the next morning and I was sitting on my own, reading The Martyrdom of Man, by Winwood Reade, a book that he had recommended to me on more than one occasion but which, I confess, I had found heavy going. I could see, however, why the author had appealed to my friend with his hatred of ‘idleness and stupidity’, his reverence for ‘the divine intellect’, his suggestion that ‘It is the nature of man to reason from himself outwards.’ Holmes could have written much of it himself, and although I was glad to turn the last page and set it aside, I felt it had at least provided me with some insight into the detective’s mind. The morning post had brought a letter from Mary. All was well in Camberwell; Richard Forrester was not so ill that he could not take delight in seeing his old governess again, and she was evidently enjoying the companionship of the boy’s mother who was treating her, quite correctly, as an equal rather than a former employee.

I had picked up my pen to reply to her when there was a loud ring at the front door, followed by the patter of many feet on the stairs. It was a sound that I remembered well, so I was fully prepared when about half a dozen street Arabs burst into the room and formed themselves into something resembling an orderly line, with the tallest and oldest of them shouting them into shape.

‘Wiggins!’ I exclaimed, for I remembered his name. ‘I had not expected to see you again.’

‘Mr ’olmes sent us a message, sir, summoning us on a matter of the greatest hurgency,’ Wiggins replied. ‘And when Mr ’olmes calls, we come, so ’ere we are!’

Sherlock had once named them the Baker Street division of the detective police force. At other times he referred to them as the Irregulars. A scruffier, more ragged bunch would be hard to imagine, boys between the ages of eight and fifteen, held together by dirt and grime, their clothes so cut about and stitched back together that it would be impossible to say to how many other children they must have at some time belonged. Wiggins himself was wearing an adult jacket that had been cut in half, a strip removed from the middle and the top, and the bottom put together again. Several of the boys were barefooted. Only one, I noted, was a little smarter and better fed than the others, his clothes slightly less threadbare, and I wondered what wickedness — pickpocketing, perhaps, or burglary — had furnished him with the means not just to survive but, in his own way, to prosper. He could not have been more than thirteen years old and yet, like all of them, he was already quite grown up. Childhood, after all, is the first precious coin that poverty steals from a child.

A moment later, Sherlock Holmes appeared and with him, Mrs Hudson. I could see that our landlady was flustered and out of sorts and she did not attempt to hide her thoughts. ‘I won’t have it, Mr Holmes. I’ve told you before. This is a respectable house in which to invite a gang of ragamuffins. Heaven knows what diseases they’ll have brought in with them — nor what items of silver or linen will be gone when they depart.’

‘Please calm yourself, my good Mrs Hudson,’ Holmes laughed. ‘Wiggins! I’ve told you before. I will not have the house invaded in this way. In future, you alone will report to me. But since you are here and have brought with you the entire gang, listen carefully to my instructions. Our quarry is an American, a man in his mid-thirties who occasionally wears a flat cap. He has a recent scar on his right cheek and, I think we can assume, is a stranger to London. Yesterday, he was at London Bridge Station and has in his possession a gold necklace set with three clusters of sapphires which, needless to say, he came by illicitly. Now, where do you think he would go to dispose of it?’

‘Fullwood’s Rents!’ one boy shouted out.

‘The Jews on Petticoat Lane,’ cried another.

‘No! He’ll get a better price at the hell houses,’ suggested a third. ‘I’d go to Flower Street or Field Lane.’

‘The pawnbrokers!’ interjected the better-dressed boy who had first caught my attention.

‘The pawnbrokers!’ Holmes agreed. ‘What’s your name, boy?’

‘It is Ross, sir.’

‘Well, Ross, you have the makings of a detective. The man that we seek is new to the city and will not know Flower Street, Fullwood’s Rents or any of the more esoteric corners where you boys find trouble for yourselves. He will go to the most obvious place and the symbol of the three golden balls is known throughout the world. So that’s where I want you to begin. He arrived at London Bridge, and let us assume that he chose to reside in a hotel or a lodging house close to there. You must visit every pawnbroker in the district, describing the man and the jewellery which he may have attempted to sell.’ Holmes reached into his pocket. ‘My rates are the same as always. A shilling each and a guinea for whoever finds what I’m looking for.’

Wiggins snapped a command and, with a great deal of noise and bustle, our unofficial police force marched out, watched by a hawk-eyed Mrs Hudson who would spend the rest of the morning counting the cutlery. As soon as they had gone, Holmes clapped his hands and sank into a chair.

‘Well, Watson,’ he proclaimed. ‘What do you make of that?’

‘You seem to have every confidence that we will find O’Donaghue,’ I said.

‘I am fairly certain that we will locate the man who broke into Ridgeway Hall,’ he replied.

‘Do you not think that Lestrade will also be enquiring at the pawnbrokers?’

‘I somehow doubt it. It is so obvious that it will not have crossed his mind. However, we have the whole day ahead of us and nothing to fill it so, since I have missed breakfast, let’s take lunch together at Le Cafe? de l’Europe beside the Haymarket Theatre. Despite the name, the food is English and first rate. After that, I have it in mind to visit the gallery of Carstairs and Finch in Albemarle Street. It might be interesting to acquaint ourselves with Mr Tobias Finch. Mrs Hudson, should Wiggins return, you might direct him there. But now, Watson, you must tell me what you thought of The Martyrdom of Man. I see that you have finally finished it.’

I glanced at the book which was lying innocuously on its side. ‘Holmes…?’

‘You have been using a cigarette card as a bookmark. I have watched its tortuous progress from the first page to the last and I see it is now lying on the table, finally released from its labours. I will be interested to hear your conclusions. Some tea, perhaps, Mrs Hudson, if you will be so kind?’

We left the house and strolled down to the Haymarket. The fog had lifted and, although still very cold, it was another brilliant day with crowds of people pouring in and out of the department stores and street sellers wheeling their barrows and calling out their wares. At Wimpole Street a great throng had gathered round an organ grinder, an old Italian playing some mournful Neapolitan tune which had also drawn in an assortment of shammers who moved among the spectators, relating their pitiful stories to anyone who would listen. There was barely a corner that did not have a street performer and, for once, nobody was inclined to move them on. We ate at Le Cafe? de l’Europe where we were served an excellent raised game pie and Holmes was in an effusive mood. He did not speak of the case, at least, not directly, but I remember him musing on the nature of pictorial art and its possible use in the solving of crime.

‘You remember Carstairs telling us of the four lost Constables,’ he said. ‘They were views of the Lake District painted at the start of the century when, apparently, the artist was sombre and depressed. The oils on the canvas, therefore, become a clue to his psychology and it follows that if a man chooses to hang such a work on