Anthony Horowitz: The House of Silk

‘You devil!’ Carstairs twisted away from her in horror. ‘How could you? How could anyone?’

‘Mr Holmes is right, Edmund,’ his wife returned and I noticed that her voice had changed. It was harder, the Irish accent now prominent. ‘I would have put all of you in your graves. First your mother. Then Eliza. And you have no idea what I was planning for you!’ She turned to Holmes. ‘And what now, clever Mr Holmes? Do you have a policeman waiting outside? Should I go upstairs and pack a few things?’

‘There is indeed a policeman waiting, Mrs Carstairs. But I have not finished yet.’ Holmes drew himself up and I saw a coldness and a vengefulness in his eyes that went beyond anything I had ever seen before. He was a judge about to deliver sentence, an executioner opening the trapdoor. A certain chill had entered the room. A month from now, Ridgeway Hall would be empty, unoccupied — and am I too fanciful to suggest that something of its fate was already being whispered, that somehow the house already knew? ‘There is still the death of the child, Ross, to be accounted for.’

Mrs Carstairs burst out laughing. ‘I know nothing about Ross,’ she said. ‘You have been very bright, Mr Holmes. But now you go beyond yourself.’

‘It is no longer you I am addressing, Mrs Carstairs,’ Holmes replied and turned instead to her husband. ‘My investigation into your affairs took an unexpected turn on the night that Ross was murdered, Mr Carstairs, and that is not a word I use often, for it is my habit to expect everything. Every crime that I have ever investigated has had what you might call a narrative flow — it is this invisible thread that my friend, Dr Watson, has always unerringly identified. It is what has made him such an excellent chronicler of my work. But I have been aware that this time I have been diverted. I was following one line of investigation and it took me, suddenly and quite accidentally, onto another. From the moment I arrived at Mrs Oldmore’s Private Hotel, I had left Boston and the Flat Cap Gang behind me. Instead, I was moving in a new direction and one that would eventually take me to the unveiling of a crime more unpleasant than any I had ever encountered.’

Carstairs flinched when he heard this. His wife was regarding him curiously.

‘Let us go back to that night, for you, of course, were with me. I knew very little about Ross, except that he was one of the band of street urchins that I have affectionately named the Baker Street Irregulars and who have helped me from time to time. They have been of use to me and I have recompensed them. It seemed a harmless arrangement, at least until now. Ross was left to watch the hotel while his companion, Wiggins, came for me. We drove, the four of us — you, me, Watson and Wiggins — over to Blackfriars. Ross saw us. And at once I perceived that the boy was terrified. He asked who we were, who you were. Watson attempted to reassure him and, in doing so, both named you and gave the boy your address. That, I rather fear, was to be the death of him — though do not blame yourself, Watson, for the mistake was equally mine.

‘I had assumed that Ross was frightened because of what he had seen at the hotel. It was a natural assumption to make for, as things turned out, a murder had taken place. I was convinced that he must have seen the killer and, for reasons of his own, had decided to keep silent. But I was wrong. What had frightened and amazed the boy was nothing to do with it at all. It was the sight of you , Mr Carstairs. Ross was determined to know who you were and where he could find you because he recognised you. God knows what you had done to that child, and even now I refuse even to consider it. But the two of you had met at the House of Silk.’

Another dreadful silence.

‘What is the House of Silk?’ Catherine Carstairs asked.

‘I will not answer your question, Mrs Carstairs. Nor do I need to address myself to you again except to say this: your entire scheme, this marriage of yours, would only have worked with a certain sort of man — one who wanted a wife to spite his family, to give him a certain standing in society, not for reasons of love or affection. As you put it so delicately yourself, you knew him for what he was. I myself wondered exactly what sort of creature I was dealing with on the very first day that we met for it always fascinates me to meet a man who tells me he is late for a Wagner opera on an evening when no Wagner is being played in town.

‘Ross recognised you, Mr Carstairs. It was the very worst thing that could have happened, for I can imagine that anonymity was the watchword at the House of Silk. You came in the night, you did what you had to do, and you left. Ross was, in all this, the victim. But he was also old beyond his years and poverty and desperation had driven him inexorably to crime. He had already stolen a gold pocket watch from one of the men who had preyed on him. As soon as he got over the shock of encountering you, he must have seen the possibilities of considerably more. Certainly, that is what he told his friend, Wiggins. Did he visit you the next day? Did he threaten to expose you if you did not pay him a fortune? Or had you already scuttled off to Charles Fitzsimmons and his gang of thugs and demanded that they take care of the situation?’

‘I never asked them to do anything,’ Carstairs muttered in a voice that seemed to be straining to bring the words to his lips.

‘You went to Fitzsimmons and told him that you were being threatened. Acting on his instructions, you sent Ross to a meeting where he believed he would be paid for his silence. He had left for that meeting moments before Watson and I arrived at The Bag of Nails and by then we were too late. It was not Fitzsimmons or yourself that Ross met. It was the two thugs who called themselves Henderson and Bratby. And they made sure he would not trouble you again.’ Holmes paused. ‘Ross was tortured to death for his audacity, a white ribbon placed around his wrist as a warning to any other of these wretched children who might have the same ideas. You may not have commanded it, Mr Carstairs, but I want you to know that I hold you personally responsible. You exploited him. You killed him. You are a man as debased and as vile as any I have ever met.’

He rose to his feet.

‘And now I will leave this house, for I do not wish to tarry here any longer. It occurs to me that, in some ways, your marriage was not perhaps as ill-judged as might be thought. The two of you are made for each other. Well, you will find police carriages waiting outside for both of you, although they will be taking you their separate ways. You are ready, Watson? We will show ourselves out.’

Edmund and Catherine Carstairs sat motionless on the sofa together. Neither of them spoke. But I felt them watching us intently as we left.

It is with a heavy heart that I draw to the end of my task. While I have been writing this, it is as if I have been reliving it, and although there are some details I would wish to forget, still it has been good to find myself back at Holmes’s side, following him from Wimbledon to Blackfriars, to Hamworth Hill and Holloway, always one step behind him (in every sense) and yet enjoying the rare privilege of observing, at close quarters, that unique mind. Now that the final page draws near, I am aware once again of the room in which I find myself, the aspidistra on the windowsill, the radiator that is always a little too hot. My hand is aching and all my memories are skewered on the page. Would that there was more to tell, for once I am finished I will find myself alone once again.

I should not complain. I am comfortable here. My daughters visit me occasionally and bring my grandchildren too. One of them was even christened Sherlock. His mother thought she was paying homage to my long friendship, but it is a name he never uses. Ah well, they will come at the end of the week and I will give them this manuscript with directions for its safe lodging and then my work will be done. All that remains is to read it one last time and perhaps take the advice of the nurse who attended upon me this morning.