The House of Silk

drugs to men who wish to buy them, it is unaccountable that on this occasion he should have decided to give them away free. But we know that this is a barrel of lies. We have already heard from a distinguished witness who saw Mr Holmes smoke one pipe and then demand a second. Mr Holmes also claims that he knows the murdered girl and that she, too, was part of this mysterious investigation. I am willing to accept this part of his testimony. It may well be that he had met her before and in his delirium he somehow managed to confuse her with some imaginary master criminal. He had no other motive for killing her.

‘It only remains for me to add that Mr Holmes now insists that he is part of a conspiracy which includes me, Constable Perkins, Isaiah Creer, Lord Horace Blackwater and, quite possibly, your honour yourself. I would describe this as delusional, but actually it’s worse than that. It’s a deliberate attempt to extricate himself from the consequences of the delusions he was suffering last night. How unfortunate for Mr Holmes that we have a second witness who actually saw the killing itself. His testimony will, I am sure, bring an end to these proceedings. For my part, I can only say that in my fifteen years with the Metropolitan Police, I have never encountered a case where the evidence has been more cut and dried, the guilty party more obvious.’

I almost expected him to take a bow. Instead, he nodded respectfully at the magistrate and sat down.

The final witness was Dr Thomas Ackland. I had barely examined him in the darkness and the confusion of the night, but standing in front of me now, he struck me as an unattractive man with curls of bright red hair (he would have been assured of a place in the red-headed league) tumbling unevenly from an elongated head and dark freckles which made his skin seem almost diseased. He had the beginnings of a moustache, an unusually long neck and watery blue eyes. It is possible, I suppose, that I exaggerate his appearance for, as he spoke, I felt a deep and irrational loathing for a man whose words seemed to place the final seal on my friend’s guilt. I have gone back to the official transcripts and can therefore present exactly what he was asked and what he himself said so that it cannot be claimed that my own prejudices distort the record.

The Prosecutor: Could you please tell the court your name.

Witness: It is Thomas Ackland.

The Prosecutor: You are from Scotland.

Witness: Yes. But I now live in London.

The Prosecutor: Will you please tell us a little of your career, Dr Ackland.

Witness: I was born in Glasgow and studied medicine at the university there. I received my medical degree in 1867. I became a lecturer at the Royal Infirmary School of Medicine in Edinburgh and later, the Professor of Clinical Surgery at Edinburgh’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children. I moved to London five years ago, following the death of my wife, and was invited to become a governor at the Westminster Hospital, which is where I am now.

The Prosecutor: The Westminster Hospital was established for the poor and is funded by public subscription. Is that right?

Witness: Yes.

The Prosecutor: And you yourself have given generously to the maintenance and enlargement of the hospital, I believe.

Magistrate: I think we should get to the point, if you don’t mind, Mr Edwards.

The Prosecutor: Very well, your honour. Dr Ackland, could you please tell the court how you happened to be in the vicinity of Milward Street and Coppergate Square last night?’

Witness: I had been to visit one of my patients. He is a good, hard-working man, but of a poor family, and after he left the hospital, I was concerned for his well-being. I came to him late because I had earlier attended a dinner at the Royal College of Physicians. I left his house at eleven o’clock, intending to walk some of the way home — I have lodgings in Holborn. However, I became lost in the fog and it was quite by chance that I entered the square a little before midnight.’

The Prosecutor: And what did you see?

Witness: I saw the whole thing. There was a girl, poorly dressed against this inclement weather, no more than fourteen or fifteen years old. I shudder to think what she might have been doing out in the street at this hour, for this is an area known for all manner of vice. When I first noticed her, her hands were raised and she was quite clearly terrified. She uttered one word. “Please…!” Then there were two shots and she fell to the ground. I knew at once that she was dead. The second shot had penetrated the skull and would have killed her instantly.

The Prosecutor: Did you see who fired the shots?

Witness: Not at first, no. It was very dark and I was completely shocked. I was also in fear of my life, for it occurred to me that there must be some madman on the loose to wish to bring harm to this wee, defenceless girl. Then I made out a figure standing a short distance away, holding a gun which was still smoking in his hand. As I watched, he groaned and fell to his knees. Then he sprawled, unconscious, on the ground.

The Prosecutor: Do you see that figure today?

Witness: Yes. He is standing in front of me in the dock.

There was another stir in the public gallery for it was as clear to all the other spectators as it was to me that this was the most damning evidence of all. Sitting next to me, Lestrade had become very still, his lips tightly drawn, and it occurred to me that the faith in Holmes which had done him such credit must surely be shaken to the core. And what of me? I confess that I was in turmoil. It was, on the face of it, inconceivable that my friend could have killed the one girl he most wanted to interview, for there was still a chance that Sally Dixon could have been told something by her brother which might have led us to the House of Silk. And then there was still the question of what she was doing in Coppergate Square to begin with. Had she been captured and held prisoner before Henderson even visited us and could he have deliberately led us into a trap with this very end in mind? That seemed to me to be the only logical conclusion. But at the same time I recalled something Holmes had said to me many times, namely that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. I might be able to dismiss the evidence given by Isaiah Creer, for a man like him would certainly be open to bribery and would say anything that was required of him. But it was impossible, or at least absurd to suggest, that an eminent Glaswegian doctor, a senior police officer from Scotland Yard and the son of the Earl of Blackwater, a member of the English aristocracy, should all come together for no obvious reason to fabricate a story and incriminate a man that none of them had ever met. That was the choice before me. Either all four of them were lying. Or Holmes, under the influence of opium, had indeed committed a terrible crime.

The magistrate needed no such deliberation. Having heard the evidence, he called for the Charge Book and entered Holmes’s name and address, his age and the charge that had been preferred against him. To these were added the names and addresses of the prosecutor and his witnesses and an inventory of all the articles found in the prisoner’s possession. (They included a pair of pince-nez, a length of string, a signet ring bearing the crest of the Duke of Cassel-Felstein, two cigarette ends wrapped in a page torn from the London Corn Circular, a chemical pipette, several Greek coins and a small beryl. To this day, I wonder what the authorities must have made of it all.) Holmes, who had not uttered a word throughout the entire procedure, was then informed that he would have to remain in custody until the coroner’s court, which would be convened after the weekend. After that, he would proceed to trial. And that was the end of the business. The magistrate was in a hurry to get on. There were several more cases to try and the light was already fading. I watched as Holmes was led away.

‘Come with me, Watson!’ Lestrade said. ‘Move sharp, now. We don’t have a lot of time.’

I followed him out of the main courtroom, down a flight of stairs and into a basement area that was utterly without comfort, where even the paintwork was mean and shabby, and which might have been expressly designed for prisoners, for men and women who had parted company with the ordinary world above. Lestrade had been here before, of course. He swiftly led me along a corridor and into a lofty, white-tiled room with a single window and a bench that ran all the way round. The bench was divided by a series of wooden partitions so that whoever sat there would be isolated and unable to communicate with those on either side. I knew at once that this was the Prisoners’ Waiting Room. Perhaps Holmes had been held here before the trial.

We were no sooner in than there was a movement at the door and Holmes appeared, escorted by a uniformed officer. I rushed towards him and might even have embraced him had I not realised that, in his view,