The House of Silk: The New Sherlock Holmes Novel Part 2

'You had no light with you?' Holmes asked.

'No. The moon was enough. I opened the door and there was a figure, a silhouette perched on the window sill, holding something in his hand. He saw me and the two of us froze, facing each other across the carpet. At first, I didn't scream. I was too shocked. Then it was as if he simply fell backwards through the window, dropping down on to the gra.s.s, and at that very moment I was released from my spell. I called out and raised the alarm.'

'We will examine the safe and the study momentarily,' Holmes said. 'But before we do so, Mrs Carstairs I can tell from your accent that you are American. Have you been married long?'

'Edmund and I have been married for almost a year and a half.'

'I should have explained to you how I met Catherine,' Carstairs said. 'For it is very much connected with the narrative that I related yesterday. The only reason that I chose not to do so was because I thought it had no relevance.'

'Everything has a relevance,' remarked Holmes. 'I have often found that the most immaterial aspect of a case can be at the same time its most significant.'

'We met on the Catalonia the very day that it left Boston,' Catherine Carstairs said. She reached out and took her husband's hand. 'I was travelling alone, apart, of course, from a girl whom I had employed to be my companion. I saw Edmund as he came on board and I knew at once that something dreadful had happened. It was obvious from his face, from the fear in his eyes. We pa.s.sed each other on the deck that evening. Both of us were single. And by a stroke of good fortune we found ourselves seated next to each other at dinner.'

'I do not know how I would have lasted the crossing if it had not been for Catherine.' Carstairs continued the tale. 'I have always been of a nervous disposition and the loss of the paintings, the death of Cornelius Stillman, the terrible violence ... it had all been too much for me. I was quite unwell, in a fever. But from the very first Catherine looked after me and I found my feelings towards her growing even as the coast of America slipped away behind me. I have to say that I have always sneered at the concept of "love at first sight", Mr Holmes. It is something I may have read in yellow-back novels but which I have never believed. Nonetheless, that is what occurred. By the time we arrived in England, I knew that I had found the woman with whom I wished to spend the rest of my life.'

'And what, may I ask, was the reason for your visit to England?' Holmes asked, turning to the wife.

'I was married briefly in Chicago, Mr Holmes. My husband worked in real estate, and although in business he was well respected in the community, and a regular churchgoer, he was never kind to me. He had a dreadful temper and there were times when I even feared for my safety. I had few friends and he did everything in his power to keep it that way. In the last months of our marriage he actually confined me to the house, afraid perhaps that I might speak out against him. But then, quite suddenly, he became ill with tuberculosis and died. Sadly, his house and much of his wealth went to his two sisters. I was left with little money, no friends and no reason to wish to stay in America. And so I left. I was coming to England for a new start.' She glanced down and added, with a look of humility, 'I had not expected to come across it so soon, nor to find the happiness that had for so long been missing from my life.'

'You mentioned a travelling companion who was with you on the Catalonia,' Holmes remarked.

'I hired her in Boston. I had never met her before and she left my employ soon after we arrived.'

Outside, in the corridor, the clock chimed the hour. Holmes sprang to his feet with a smile on his face and that sense of energy and excitement that I knew so well. 'We must waste no further time!' he exclaimed. 'I wish to examine the safe and the room in which it is contained. Fifty pounds has been taken, you say. Not a very large sum of money, all things considered. Let us see what, if anything, the thief has left behind.'

But before we could make a move, another woman came into the room and I saw at once that, though part of the household, she was as different from Catherine Carstairs as could be imagined. She was plain and unsmiling, dressed in grey, with dark hair tightly bound at the back of her neck. She wore a silver cross and her hands were knotted together as if in prayer. From her dark eyes, her pale skin and the shape of her lips, I surmised that she must be related to Carstairs. She had none of his theatricality but was more like the prompter, for ever cast into the shadows, waiting for him to forget his lines.

'What now?' she demanded. 'First I am disturbed in my room by police officers asking absurd questions to which I cannot possibly know the replies. And that is not enough? Are we to invite the whole world in to invade our privacy?'

'This is Mr Sherlock Holmes, Eliza,' Carstairs stammered. 'I told you that I consulted with him yesterday.'

'And much good did it do you. There was nothing he could do; that was what he told you. A fine consultation, Edmund, I am sure. We could all of us have been murdered in our beds.'

Carstairs glanced at her fondly but at the same time with exasperation. 'This is my sister, Eliza,' he said.

'You reside in this house?' Holmes asked her.

'I am tolerated, yes,' replied the sister. 'I have an attic room where I keep myself to myself and everyone seems to prefer it that way. I reside here, but I am not part of this family. You might as well speak to the servants as to me.'

'You know that's not fair, Eliza,' Mrs Carstairs said.

Holmes turned to Carstairs. 'Perhaps you might tell me how many people there are in the house.'

'Apart from myself and Catherine, Eliza does indeed occupy the top floor. We have Kirby, who is our footman and man-of-all-work. It was he who showed you in. His wife acts as our housekeeper and the two of them reside downstairs. They have a young nephew, Patrick, who came to us recently from Ireland and who acts as the kitchen boy and runs errands, and there is a scullery maid, Elsie. In addition, we have a coachman and groom but they live in the village.'

'A large household and a busy one,' Holmes remarked. 'But we were about to examine the safe.'

Eliza Carstairs remained where she was. The rest of us went out of the living room, down the corridor and into Carstairs's study, which was at the very back of the house with a view of the garden and, in the distance, an ornamental pond. This turned out to be a comfortable, well-appointed room with a desk framed by two windows, velvet curtains, a handsome fireplace and some landscapes which, from their bright colours and the almost haphazard way the paint had been applied, I knew must belong to the impressionist school of which Carstairs had spoken. The safe, a solid enough affair, was tucked away in one corner. It was still open.

'Is this how you found it?' asked Holmes.

'The police have examined it,' Carstairs replied. 'But I felt it best to leave it open until you arrived.'

'You were right,' Holmes said. He glanced at the safe. 'The lock does not appear to have been forced which would suggest that a key has been used,' he remarked.

'There was only one key and I keep it with me all the time,' Carstairs returned. 'Although I asked Kirby to make a copy of it some six months ago. Catherine keeps her jewellery in the safe and when I am away for I still travel to auctions all over the country and sometimes to Europe she felt she should have a key of her own.'

Mrs Carstairs had followed us into the room and was standing by the desk. She brought her hands together. 'I lost it,' she said.

'When was that?'

'I cannot really say, Mr Holmes. It may have been a month ago, it may have been longer. Edmund and I have been through this. I wanted to open the safe a few weeks ago and could not find it. The last time I used it was on my birthday, which is in August. I have no idea what happened to it after that. I am not normally so careless.'

'Could it have been stolen?'

'I kept it in a drawer beside my bed and n.o.body 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, n.o.body 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 gla.s.s 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 cl.u.s.ters 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 a.s.sure 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 att.i.tude 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 a.s.sure 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 d.a.m.ning 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 b.u.t.t 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 gra.s.s. 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 cl.u.s.ters 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 n.o.body with barely any money to her name? Out at sea, with days on board that s.h.i.+p, 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-dealers.h.i.+p 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.