Anthony Horowitz - The House of Silk

‘Can we be sure that this is the same man who imposed himself on Mr Edmund Carstairs?’ Lestrade asked.

‘Indeed so. Carstairs was able to identify him.’

‘He was here?’

‘Briefly, yes. Sadly, he was compelled to leave.’ Holmes smiled to himself and I recalled how we had been compelled to bundle Edmund Carstairs into a cab and send him on his way to Wimbledon. He had barely glimpsed the body but it had been enough to send him into a fainting fit and I had understood how he must have been on board the Catalonia following his experiences with the Flat Cap Gang in Boston. It may be that he had the same sensitivity as some of the artists whose works he displayed. It was certainly the case that the blood and grime of Bermondsey were not for him.

‘Here is further evidence if you need it.’ Holmes gestured at a flat cap, lying on the bed.

Lestrade had meanwhile turned his attention to a packet of cigarettes lying on a table nearby. He examined the label. ‘Old Judge…’

‘Manufactured, I think you will find, by Goodwin and Company of New York. I found the stub of one such cigarette at Ridgeway Hall.’

‘Did you now?’ Lestrade let out a silent exclamation. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose we can discard the idea that our American friend was the victim of a random attack? Though there have been plenty of those in this neighbourhood, and it is always possible that this fellow returned to his room and surprised someone as they were ransacking the place. A fight ensued. A knife was drawn. And there’s the end of it…’

‘I think it is unlikely,’ Holmes agreed. ‘It would seem too much of a coincidence that a man who arrived recently in London and who was clearly up to no good should suddenly meet his end in this way. What happened in this hotel room can only be a direct result of his activities in Wimbledon. And then there is the position of the body and the angle at which the knife was driven into his neck. It seems to me that the attacker was waiting for him beside the door in the darkened room, for there was no candle burning here when we arrived. He walked in and was seized from behind. Looking at him, you can see that he was a powerful man, capable of looking after himself. But in this instance he was taken by surprise and killed with a single blow.’

‘Theft might still be the motive,’ Lestrade insisted. ‘There are the fifty pounds and the necklace to be accounted for. If they are not here, where are they?’

‘I have every reason to believe you will find the necklace in a pawnbroker on Bridge Lane. Our man had just come from there. It would certainly appear that whoever killed him took the money, but I would suggest that was not the primary reason for the crime. Perhaps you should ask yourself what else was taken from the room. We have a body with no identity, Lestrade. You would think that a visitor from America might have a passport or letters of introduction, perhaps, to recommend him to a bank. His wallet, I notice, is absent. You know what name he used on entering the hotel?’

‘He called himself Benjamin Harrison.’

‘Which is of course the current American president.’

‘The American president? Of course. I was aware of that.’ Lestrade scowled. ‘But whatever name he chose, we know exactly who he is. He is Keelan O’Donaghue, late of Boston. You see the mark on his face? That’s a bullet wound. Don’t tell me you’ll argue with that!’

Holmes turned to me and I nodded. ‘It is certainly a gun wound,’ I said. I had seen many similar injuries in Afghanistan. ‘I would say it is about a year old.’

‘Which ties in exactly with what Carstairs told me,’ Lestrade concluded, triumphantly. ‘It seems to me that we have come to the end of this whole sorry episode. O’Donaghue was injured in the shootout at the Boston tenement. At the same time, his twin brother was killed and he came to England on a mission of revenge. That much is as plain as a pikestaff.’

‘To my eyes, it could hardly be less plain if a pikestaff had been used as the murder weapon,’ Holmes demurred. ‘Perhaps you can explain to us, then, Lestrade: who killed Keelan O’Donaghue — and why?’

‘Well, the most obvious suspect would be Edmund Carstairs himself.’

‘Except that Mr Carstairs was with us at the time of the murder. Also, having been witness to his reaction on discovering the body, I really don’t think he would have had the nerve or the willpower to strike the blow himself. Besides, he did not know where his victim was staying. As far as we know, nobody at Ridgeway Hall had that information for we ourselves were only told at the very last moment. I might also ask you why, if this really is Keelan O’Donaghue, he has a cigarette case marked with the initials WM?’

‘What cigarette case?’

‘It is on the bed, partly covered by the sheet. That would doubtless explain why the killer missed it, too.’

Lestrade found the object in question and briefly examined it. ‘O’Donaghue was a thief,’ he said. ‘There is no reason why he might not have stolen this.’

‘Is there any reason why he would have stolen it? It is not a valuable item. It is made of tin with the letters painted on.’

Lestrade had opened the case. It was empty. He snapped it shut. ‘This is all the merest moonshine,’ he said. ‘The trouble with you, Holmes, is that you have a way of complicating things. I sometimes wonder if you don’t do it deliberately. It’s as if you need the crime to rise to the challenge, as if it has to be unusual enough for it to be worth solving. The man in this room was American. He had been wounded in a gunfight. He was seen once in the Strand and twice in Wimbledon. If he did visit this pawnshop of yours, then we will know him to be the thief who broke into Carstairs’s safe. From there, it is easy enough to construe what took place here. Doubtless O’Donaghue would have had other criminal contacts here in London. He may well have recruited one of them to help him in his vendetta. The two of them fell out. The other pulled a knife. This is the result!’

‘You are certain of that?’

‘I am as certain as I need to be.’

‘Well, we shall see. But there is nothing more to be gained from discussing the matter here. Perhaps the owner of the hotel will be able to enlighten us.’

But Mrs Oldmore, who was now waiting in the small office that had formerly been occupied by the Boots, had little to add. She was a greyhaired, sour-faced woman who sat with her arms wrapped around her as if she were afraid that the building would contaminate her unless she could keep herself as far away as possible from its walls. She was wearing a small bonnet and had a fur stole across her shoulders, although I shuddered to think what animal had provided it nor how it had met its end. Starvation seemed a likely option.

‘’e took the room for the week,’ she said. ‘And paid me a guinea. An American gentleman, just off a ship at Liverpool. That much ’e told me, though not much more. It was ’is first time in London. He didn’t say so, but I could tell for he ’ad no idea ’ow to find ’is way around. He said there was someone ’e ’ad come to see in Wimbledon and ’e asked me how to get there. “Wimbledon,” I said. “That’s a posh area and plenty of rich Americans with fancy homes, and no mistake.” Not that there was anything fancy about him — he had little luggage, his clothes were tatty, and then there was that nasty wound on ’is face. “I will go there tomorrow,” he said. “For there is someone who owes me something and I mean to collect it.” From the way ’e talked, I could tell ’e was up to no good and I thought to myself then and there — whoever this person is, maybe he should look out for ’imself. I was expecting trouble, but what can you do? If I turned away every suspicious-looking customer who came knocking at my door, I’d have no business at all. And now this American, Mr Harrison, is murdered! Well, it’s to be expected, I suppose. It’s the world we live in, isn’t it, where a respectable woman can’t run a hotel without having blood on the walls and corpses spread out on the floorboards. I should never have stayed in London. It’s an ’orrible place. Utterly ’orrible!’