The House of Silk: The New Sherlock Holmes Novel Page 5

  ‘Could it have been stolen?’

  ‘I kept it in a drawer beside my bed and nobody comes into the room apart from the servants. As far as I know, the key never left this house.’

  Holmes turned to Carstairs. ‘You did not replace the safe.’

  ‘It was always in my mind to do so. But it occurred to me that if the key had somehow been dropped in the garden or even in the village, nobody could possibly know what it opened. If, as seemed more likely, it were somewhere amongst my wife’s possessions, then it was unlikely to fall into the wrong hands. Anyway, we cannot be sure that it was my wife’s key which was used to open the safe. Kirby could have had a second copy made.’

  ‘How long has he been with you?’

  ‘Six years.’

  ‘You have had no cause to complain about him?’

  ‘None whatsoever.’

  ‘And what of this kitchen boy, Patrick? Your wife says she mistrusts him.’

  ‘My wife dislikes him because he is insolent and can be a little sly. He has been with us for only a few months and we only took him on at the behest of Mrs Kirby, who asked us to help him find employment. She will vouch for him, and I have no reason to think him dishonest.’

  Holmes had taken out his glass and examined the safe, paying particular attention to the lock. ‘You say that some jewellery was stolen,’ he said. ‘Was it your wife’s?’

  ‘No. As a matter of fact it was a sapphire necklace belonging to my late mother. Three clusters of sapphires in a gold setting. I imagine it would have little financial value to the thief but it had great sentimental value to me. She lived with us here until a few months ago until …’ He broke off and his wife went over to him, laying a hand on his arm. ‘There was an accident, Mr Holmes. She had a gas fire in her bedroom. Somehow the flame blew out and she was asphyxiated in her sleep.’

  ‘She was very elderly?’

  ‘She was sixty-nine. She always slept with the window closed, even in the summer. Otherwise she might have been saved.’

  Holmes left the safe and went over to the window. I joined him there as he examined the sill, the sashes and the frame. As was his habit, he spoke his observations aloud – not necessarily for my benefit. ‘No shutters,’ he began. ‘The window is snibbed and some distance from the ground. It has evidently been forced from the outside. The wood is splintered, which may explain the sound that Mrs Carstairs heard.’ He seemed to be making a calculation. ‘I would like, if I may, to speak to your man, Kirby. And after that I will walk in the garden, although I imagine the local police will have trampled over anything that might have furnished me with any clue as to what has taken place. Did they give you any idea of their line of investigation?’

  ‘Inspector Lestrade returned and spoke to us shortly before you arrived.’

  ‘What? Lestrade? He was here?’

  ‘Yes. And whatever opinion you may have of him, Mr Holmes, he struck me as being both thorough and efficient. He had already ascertained that a man with an American accent took the first train from Wimbledon to London Bridge at five o’clock this morning. From the way he was dressed and the scar on his right cheek, we are certain that it is the same man that I saw outside my house.’

  ‘I can assure you that if Lestrade is involved, you can be quite certain that he will come to a conclusion very quickly, even if it is completely the wrong one! Good day, Mr Carstairs. A pleasure to meet you, Mrs Carstairs. Come, Watson …’

  We retraced our footsteps down the corridor to the front door where Kirby was already waiting for us. He had seemed barely welcoming on our arrival but it may have been that he saw us as an impediment to the smooth running of the house. He still appeared square-jawed, with a hatchet face, a man unwilling to speak more words than were truly necessary, but at least he was a little more amenable as he answered Holmes’s questions. He confirmed that he had been at Ridgeway Hall for six years. He was from Barnstaple originally, his wife from Dublin. Holmes asked him if the house had changed very much during his time there.

  ‘Oh yes, sir,’ came the reply. ‘Old Mrs Carstairs was very fixed in her ways. She would certainly let you know if there was anything that was not to her liking. The new Mrs Carstairs could not be more different. She has a very cheerful disposition. My wife considers her a breath of fresh air.’

  ‘You were glad that Mr Carstairs married?’

  ‘We were delighted, sir, as well as surprised.’

  ‘Surprised?’

  ‘I wouldn’t wish to speak out of turn, sir, but Mr Carstairs had formerly shown no interest in such matters, being devoted to his family and to his work. Mrs Carstairs rather burst in on the scene but we are all agreed that the house has been better for it.’

  ‘You were present when old Mrs Carstairs died?’

  ‘Indeed I was, sir. In part I blame myself. The lady had a great fear of draughts, as a result of which I had – at her insistence – stopped up every crevice by which air might enter the room. The gas, therefore, had no way of escaping. It was the maid, Elsie, who discovered her in the morning. By then the room was filled with fumes – a truly dreadful business.’

  ‘Was the kitchen boy, Patrick, in the house at the time?’

  ‘Patrick had arrived just one week before. It was an inauspicious start, sir.’

  ‘He is your nephew, I understand.’

  ‘On my wife’s side, yes, sir.’

  ‘From Dublin?’

  ‘Indeed. Patrick has not found it easy, being in service. We had hoped to give him a good start in life but he has yet to learn the correct attitude for one befitting his station, particularly in the way he addresses the master of the house. It may well be, though, that the early calamity of which we have spoken and the disruption that followed may in some way be responsible. He is not such a bad young man and I hope that in time he will prosper.’

  ‘Thank you, Kirby.’

  ‘My pleasure, sir. I have your coat and your gloves …’

  Out in the garden, Holmes showed himself to be in an unusually jaunty mood. He strode across the lawn, inhaling the afternoon air and rejoicing in this brief escape from the city, for none of the fogs of Baker Street had followed us here. At this time, there were parts of Wimbledon which were still very much akin to being in the country. We could see sheep huddled together on a hillside beside a grove of ancient oaks. There were but a few houses dotted around us and we were both struck by the tranquillity of the landscape and the strange quality of the light which seemed to throw everything into sharp focus. ‘This is a wholly remarkable case, do you not think?’ he exclaimed, as we made our way towards the lane.

  ‘It strikes me as quite trivial,’ I replied. ‘The sum of fifty pounds has been taken along with an antique necklace. I can’t call this the most testing of your challenges, Holmes.’

  ‘I find the necklace particularly fascinating, given everything we have heard about this household. You have already arrived, then, at the solution?’

  ‘I would suppose that it all hinges on whether the unwanted visitor to this house was indeed the twin brother from Boston.’

  ‘And if I were to assure you that he was almost certainly not?’

  ‘Then I would say that, not for the first time, you are being thoroughly perplexing.’

  ‘Dear old Watson. How good it is to have you at my side. But I think this is where the intruder arrived last night …’ We had come to the bottom of the garden where the drive met the lane, with the village green on the other side. The continuing cold weather and the well-tended lawn had together created a perfect canvas on which all the comings and goings of the preceding twenty-four hours had been, in effect, frozen. ‘There, if I am not mistaken, goes the thorough and efficient Lestrade.’ There were footprints all around, but Holmes had pointed to one set in particular.

  ‘You cannot possibly know they are his.’

  ‘No? The length of the stride would suggest a man of about five foot six inches in height, the same as Lestrade. He was wearing square-toed
boots, such as I have often seen on Lestrade’s feet. But the most damning evidence is that they are heading in quite the wrong direction, missing everything of importance – and who else could that be but Lestrade? He has, you will see, entered and left by the gate on the right. It is a perfectly natural choice for, on approaching the house, it is the first gate that you come to. The intruder, however, surely came in the other way.’

  ‘Both gates seem identical to me, Holmes.’

  ‘The gates are indeed identical, but the one to the left is less conspicuous due to the position of the fountain. If you were to approach the house without wishing to be seen, this is the one you would choose and as you will observe, we have only one set of footprints here with which to concern ourselves. Halloa! What have we here?’ Holmes crouched down and seized hold of the butt of a cigarette which he showed to me. ‘An American cigarette, Watson. There is no mistaking the tobacco. You will notice that there is no ash in this immediate area.’

  ‘The stub of a cigarette but no ash?’

  ‘Meaning that although he was careful not to be seen, he did not linger long. Do you not find that significant?’

  ‘It was the middle of the night, Holmes. He could see that the house was in darkness. He had no fear of being noticed.’

  ‘Even so …’ We followed the tracks across the lawn and round the side of the house to the study. ‘He was walking at a steady pace. He could have paused at the fountain to make sure that he was safe but he chose not to.’ Holmes examined the window that we had already examined from within. ‘He must have been a man of uncommon strength.’

  ‘The window would not have been so difficult to force.’

  ‘Indeed not, Watson. But consider the height of it. You can see where he jumped down when he was finished. He has left two deep imprints in the grass. But there is no sign of a ladder, nor even a garden chair. It is just possible that he could have found a toehold on the wall. The mortar is loose and some of the edges are exposed. But he would still have had to use one hand to cling to the sill while he jemmied open the window with the other. We must also ask ourselves if it was a coincidence that he chose to break into the very room in which the safe was contained.’

  ‘Surely he came round the back of the house because it was more secluded and there was less chance of his being seen? He then chose a window at random.’

  ‘In which instance he was remarkably fortunate.’ Holmes had concluded his examination. ‘But it is exactly as I hoped, Watson,’ he went on. ‘A necklace with three clusters of sapphires in a gold setting should not be hard to trace, and that should lead us directly to our man. Lestrade has at least confirmed that he took the train to London Bridge. We must do the same. The station is not far and it’s a pleasant day. We can walk.’

  We made our way across the front of the house, following the drive. But before we could reach the lane, the front door of Ridgeway Hall opened and a woman hurried out, stopping in front of us. It was Eliza Carstairs, the art dealer’s sister. She had drawn a shawl across her shoulders, which she clutched to her chest, and it was clear from her features, her staring eyes and the wisps of dark hair that flew around her forehead, that she was in a state of consternation.

  ‘Mr Holmes!’ she cried.

  ‘Miss Carstairs.’

  ‘I was rude to you inside and for that you must forgive me. But I must tell you now that nothing is as it seems and that unless you help us, unless you can lift the curse that has fallen on this place, we are doomed.’

  ‘I beg of you, Miss Carstairs, to compose yourself.’

  ‘She is the cause of all this!’ The sister flung an accusatory finger in the direction of the house. ‘Catherine Marryat – for that was her name by her first marriage. She came upon Edmund when he was at his lowest ebb. He has always had a sensitive nature, even as a boy, and it was inevitable that his nerves would be unable to stand up to the ordeal he had been through in Boston. He was exhausted, infirm and – yes, in need of someone to take care of him. And so she threw herself at him. What right did she have, an American nobody with barely any money to her name? Out at sea, with days on board that ship, she spun a web around him so that when he returned home, it was too late. We could not dissuade him.’

  ‘You would have looked after him yourself.’

  ‘I love him as only a sister can. My mother too. And do not believe for a single minute that she died as a result of an accident. We are a respectable family, Mr Holmes. My father was a printseller who came to London from Manchester and it was he who opened the picture-dealership in Albemarle Street. Alas, he died when we were quite young and since then the three of us have lived together in perfect harmony. When Edmund announced his determination to ally himself with Mrs Marryat, when he argued with us and refused to listen to reason, it broke my mother’s heart. Of course we would have liked to see Edmund married. His happiness was all that mattered to us in the world. But how could he marry her? A foreign adventuress we had never met and who, from the start, was clearly interested only in his wealth and position, in the comfort and protection he could give her. My mother killed herself, Mr Holmes. She could not live with the shame and the unhappiness of this accursed marriage and so, six months after the wedding day, she turned on the gas tap and lay on her bed until the fumes had done their work and the kindness of oblivion had taken her from us.’

  ‘Did your mother communicate her intentions to you?’ Holmes asked.

  ‘She didn’t need to. I knew what was in her mind and I was hardly surprised when they found her. She had made her choice. This has not been a pleasant household from the day that the American woman arrived, Mr Holmes. And now this latest business, this intruder who has broken into our home and stolen Mama’s necklace, our most cherished memory of that dear, departed soul. It is all part of the same evil business. How do we not know that this stranger has not come here on her account rather than to pursue some vendetta against my brother? She was with me in the sitting room when he first appeared. I saw him from the window. Perhaps he is an old acquaintance who has followed her here. Perhaps he is more. But this is only the beginning of it, Mr Holmes. So long as this marriage continues, we will none of us be safe.’

  ‘Your brother seems perfectly content,’ Holmes responded, with a degree of indifference. ‘But setting that aside, what would you have me do? A man can choose whom he marries without the blessing of his mother. Or, indeed, of his sister.’

  ‘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 de
tective’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.’