The House of Silk

was not, however, in an easy state of mind. He was restless, irritable and, from his frequent glances at the mantelpiece (I did not need his powers of deduction) I could tell that he was tempted by the liquid cocaine that was his most lamentable habit. It would have helped if he was on a case, but he was not and, as I have often noted, it was when he was idle, when his energies were not being directed towards some insoluble mystery, that he became distracted and prone to long moods of depression. But this time, I realised, it was something more. He had not mentioned the House of Silk or any of the details associated with it, but reading the newspaper one morning, he drew my attention to a brief article concerning Chorley Grange School for Boys which had just been closed down.

‘It’s not enough,’ he muttered. He crumpled the paper in both hands and set it aside, then added: ‘Poor Ross!’

From this, and from other indications in his behaviour — he mentioned, for example, that he might never call upon the services of the Baker Street Irregulars again — I gathered that he still blamed himself, in part, for the boy’s death, and that the scenes we had witnessed that night on Hamworth Hill had left an indelible mark on his consciousness. Nobody knew evil like Holmes, but there are some evils that it is better not to know, and he could not enjoy even the rewards of his success without being reminded of the dark places to which it had taken him. I could understand this. I had bad dreams myself. But I had Mary to consider, and a medical practice to run. Holmes found himself trapped in his own particular world, forced to dwell on things he would rather forget.

One evening, after we had taken dinner together, he suddenly announced that he was going out. The snow had not returned, but January was as glacial as December had been, and though I had no desire at all for this late expedition, I nonetheless asked him if he would like me to accompany him.

‘No, no, Watson. It’s kind of you. But I think I would be better alone.’

‘But where are you going at this late hour, Holmes? Let’s go back to the fire and enjoy a whisky peg together. Any business you may have can surely wait until the day.’

‘Watson, you are the very best of friends and I am aware that I have been poor company. What I need is a little time alone. But we will have breakfast tomorrow and I am sure you will find me in better spirits.’

We did and he was. We spent a pleasant and companionable day visiting the British Museum and lunching at Simpson’s, and it was only as we were returning home that I saw in the newspapers a report of the great fire on Hamworth Hill. A building that had once been occupied by a charitable school had been razed to the ground, and apparently the flames had leapt so high into the night sky that they had been visible as far afield as Wembley. I said nothing about it to Holmes and asked no questions. Nor had I remarked that morning that his coat, which had been hanging in its usual place, had carried about it the strong smell of cinders. That evening, Holmes played his Stradivarius for the first time in a while. I listened with pleasure to the soaring tune as we sat together on either side of the hearth.

I hear it still. As I lay down my pen and take to my bed, I am aware of the bow being drawn across the bridge and the music rises into the night sky. It is far away and barely audible but — there it is! A pizzicato. Then a tremolo. The style is unmistakable. It is Sherlock Holmes who is playing. It must be. I hope with all my heart that he is playing for me…

Anthony Horowitz on Writing The House of Silk: Conception, Inspiration and The Ten Rules.

I’m still quite surprised that I was approached to write The House of Silk (I’m assuming, by the way, that you have read it before you reach this point. Spoilers follow!). Although the bulk of my television work is adult, when it comes to fiction I’m better known for children’s books — in particular the Alex Rider series — and I’m fairly sure that the Doyle estate wasn’t interested in a fast-paced action thriller full of explosions and improbable chases. They’d already had plenty of that with Robert Downey Jnr. At the time, they weren’t even aware that I have long been an admirer of the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories. I was actually given a set by my father for my seventeenth birthday (I think) and they immediately wove themselves into the fabric of my life. I cannot now read The Dying Detective or The Devil’s Foot (two of my favourites) without somehow regressing into my teens. For me, Jeremy Brett was the finest TV Holmes and watching occasional re-runs on ITV3, I find myself being taken back to my late twenties and can see the house where I lived, even the clothes I was wearing. There are very few characters in fiction who have the power to do this — but Holmes is certainly one of them.

It may well be that Sherlock Holmes is the reason why I have spent so much of my life writing crime fiction of my own and if there is one small boast that I occasionally make, it’s that I have probably written more fictional murders than any other writer. Ever. The crime figures can be quickly totted up.

I helped to create Midsomer Murders from the novels of Caroline Grahame (‘Agatha Christie on acid’) and they certainly have the highest body count on British Television. I wrote the first seven episodes which saw no fewer than nineteen fatalities including Elizabeth Spriggs (poisoned), Anna Massey (pushed out of a window) and Orlando Bloom (stabbed with a pitchfork). In the early days of MM, writers were encouraged to develop a bad habit in that whenever an advertising break approached, someone would be killed simply to make the story more interesting and to encourage the audience to keep watching. It could be argued that in the end this would turn the series into a parody of itself. For my part, I had to give up writing the show when I realised that there was hardly anybody left in Midsomer to murder.

Before MM, I adapted fourteen hours of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, which averaged at least one murder in the short stories, often two or three in the novels. A less successful original series of mine, Crime Traveller, had a detective travelling back in time to prevent murders and invariably feeling (it was a time paradox… if there hadn’t been a murder he would never have travelled back in time so the very fact that he had done so proved that it had to have happened). Eight hours, eight more deaths. Given that they were supposed to be a slice of UK life in the 21st Century, there were a surprising number of murders in the two five-part shows that I developed for ITV: Collision and Injustice.

And then there’s Foyle’s War, which has now run for ten years on ITV with Michael Kitchen superb as a reluctant detective investigating crimes during the Second World War. Perhaps this was the programme that brought me to the attention of the Doyle estate. More serious and low-key than Midsomer Murders, it was set in the past, very carefully researched and perhaps more in keeping with the book they had in mind. I wrote twentyone two hour episodes and although we did our best to keep the body count down (my favourite episode, The French Drop, has no murder at all) the deaths still added up.

And that’s not counting my children’s books. The Alex Rider world is necessarily a violent one. I have produced over thirty horror stories. And then there are the less well known but surprisingly blood-splattered detective stories featuring the Diamond brothers. I Know What You Did Last Wednesday, contains seven violent deaths in just seventy-eight pages.

I’m often asked why readers have such a keen interest in murder. The short answer is that actually I think we don’t — but in fiction, whether it’s television or books — murder is a simple, very immediate way of focusing attention on a character. We may have no particular interest in a man who makes pizzas but the moment his wife is found with her head in the pizza oven, we’re forced to ask questions about him, to look behind their relationship, to search for the truth. In detective drama, the viewer and the detective have a very similar role. And what is it about the British that makes us so pre-eminent in this field? Well, I think the fictitious county of Midsomer provides part of the answer. As a race we’re very secretive. By and large we don’t display our emotions in the same way as, say, the Americans. We live behind net curtains. This is an atmosphere very conducive to murder and it reminds me that when I put together a document to explain the ethos of Midsomer Murders — this was before the series had even been commissioned — I put at the head of it a famous quotation from the Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Copper Beeches: ‘the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.’