The House of Silk

NINE The Warning

‘There is no helping it,’ Holmes said with a sigh of irritation. ‘We are going to have to call upon Mycroft.’

I had first met Mycroft Holmes when he had asked for help on the behalf of a neighbour of his, a Greek interpreter who had fallen in with a vicious pair of criminals. Until that moment, I had not the remotest idea that Holmes had a brother seven years older than himself. Indeed, I had never thought of him as having any family at all. It may seem strange that a man whom I could quite reasonably call my closest friend and one in whose company I had spent many hundreds of hours had never once mentioned his childhood, his parents, the place where he was born or anything else relating to his life before Baker Street. But, of course, that was his nature. He never celebrated his birthday and I only discovered the date when I read it in his obituaries. He once mentioned to me that his ancestors had been country squires and that one of his relations was a quite well-known artist but in general he preferred almost to pretend that his family had never existed, as if a prodigy such as himself had sprung unaided onto the world stage.

When I first heard that Holmes had a brother, it humanised him — or at least, it did until I met the brother. Mycroft was, in many ways, as peculiar as he: unmarried, unconnected, existing in a small world of his own creation. This was largely defined by the Diogenes Club in Pall Mall where he was to be found every day from a quarter to five until eight o’clock. I believe he had an apartment somewhere close by. The Diogenes Club, as is well known, catered to the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town. Nobody ever spoke to each other. In fact, talking was not allowed at all, except in the Stranger’s Room, and even there the conversation hardly flowed. I remember reading in a newspaper that the hall porter had once wished a member good evening and had been promptly dismissed. The dining room had all the warmth and conviviality of a Trappist monastery, although the food was at least superior as the club employed a French chef of some renown. That Mycroft enjoyed his food was evident from his frame, which was quite excessively corpulent. I can still see him wedged into a chair with a brandy on one side and a cigar on the other. It was always disconcerting to meet him, for I would glimpse in him, just for a moment, some of the features of my friend: the light grey eyes, the same sharpness of expression, but they would seem strangely out of place, translated, as it were, to this animated mountain of flesh. Then Mycroft would turn his head and he would be a complete stranger to me, the sort of man who somehow warned you to keep your distance. I did sometimes wonder what the two of them might have been like as boys. Had they ever fought together, read together, kicked a ball between them? It was impossible to imagine, for they had grown up to become the sort of men who would like you to think that they had never been boys at all.

When Holmes first described Mycroft to me, he had said that he was an auditor, working for a number of government departments. But actually this was only half the truth and I later learned that his brother was much more important and influential. I refer, of course, to the adventure of the Bruce-Partington plans when the blueprints for a top secret submarine were stolen from the Admiralty. It was Mycroft who was charged with getting them back, and that was when Holmes admitted to me that he was a vital figure in government circles, a human repository of arcane facts, the man that every department consulted when something needed to be known. It was Holmes’s opinion that, had he chosen to be a detective he might have been his equal or even, I was astonished to hear him admit, his superior. But Mycroft Holmes suffered from a singular character flaw. He had a streak of indolence so ingrained that it would have rendered him unable to solve any crime, for the simple reason that he would have been unable to interest himself in it. He is still alive, by the way. When I last heard, he had been knighted and was the chancellor of a well-known university, but he has since retired.

‘Is he in London?’ I asked.

‘He is seldom anywhere else. I will inform him that we intend to visit the club.’

The Diogenes was one of the smaller clubs on Pall Mall, designed rather like a Venetian palazzo in the Gothic style, with highly ornate, arched windows and small balustrades. This had the effect of making the interior rather gloomy. The front door led to an atrium which rose the full length of the building with a domed window high above but the architect had cluttered the place with too many galleries, columns and staircases and the result was that very little light was able to disseminate its way through. Visitors were permitted only on the ground floor. According to the rules, there were two days of the week when they could accompany a member to the dining room above, but in the seventy years since the club had been founded, this had never yet occurred. Mycroft received us, as always, in the Stranger’s Room, with its oak bookshelves bowing under the weight of so many books, its various marble busts, its bow window with views across Pall Mall. There was a portrait of the Queen above the fireplace, painted, it was said, by a member of the club who had insulted her by including a stray dog and a potato, although I was never able to grasp the significance of either.

‘My dear Sherlock!’ Mycroft exclaimed as he waddled in. ‘How are you? You have recently lost weight, I notice. But I’m glad to see you restored to your old self.’

‘And you have recovered from influenza.’

‘A very mild bout. I enjoyed your monograph on tattoos. Written during the hours of the night, evidently. Have you been troubled by insomnia?’

‘The summer was unpleasantly warm. You did not tell me you had acquired a parrot.’

‘Not acquired, Sherlock. Borrowed. Dr Watson, a pleasure. Although it has been almost a week since you saw your wife, I trust she is well. You have just returned from Gloucestershire.’

‘And you from France.’

‘Mrs Hudson has been away?’

‘She returned last week. You have a new cook.’

‘The last one resigned.’

‘On account of the parrot.’

‘She always was highly strung.’

This exchange took place with such rapidity that I felt myself to be a spectator at a tennis tournament, my head swivelling from one to the other.

Mycroft waved us to the sofa and settled his own bulk on a chaise longue. ‘I was very sorry to hear of the death of the boy, Ross,’ he said, suddenly more serious. ‘You know, I have advised you against the use of these street children, Sherlock. I hope you didn’t place him in harm’s way.’

‘It is too early to say with any certainty. You read the newspaper reports?’

‘Of course. Lestrade is handling the investigation. He’s not such a bad man. This business of the white ribbon, though. I find that most disturbing. I would say that, allied with the extremely painful and protracted manner of the death, it was placed there as a warning. The principal question you should be asking yourself is whether that warning was a general one, or whether it was directed towards you.’

‘I was sent a piece of white ribbon seven weeks ago.’ Holmes had brought the envelope with him. He produced it and handed it to his brother who examined it.

‘The envelope tells us little,’ he said. ‘It was pushed through your letter box in a hurry for you see the end is scuffed. Your name written by a right-handed, educated man.’ He drew out the ribbon. ‘This silk is Indian. Doubtless you will have seen that for yourself. It has been exposed to sunlight, for the fabric has weakened. It is exactly nine inches in length, which is interesting. It was purchased from a milliner’s and then cut into two pieces of equal length, for although one end has been cut professionally with a pair of sharp scissors, the other was sliced, roughly, with a knife. I cannot add very much more than that, Sherlock.’

‘Nor did I expect you to, brother Mycroft. But I did wonder if you might be able to tell me what it signifies. Have you heard of a place or an organisation called the House of Silk?’

Mycroft shook his head. ‘The name means nothing to me. It sounds like a shop. Indeed, now I think of it, I seem to remember there being a gentleman’s outfitter of that name in Edinburgh. Could it not be where this ribbon was purchased?’

‘That seems unlikely, given the circumstances. We heard it first mentioned by a girl who had most probably lived her whole life in London. It filled her with such fear that she struck out at Dr Watson here, inflicting a knife wound on his chest.’

‘Goodness!’

‘I mentioned it also to Lord Ravenshaw—’

‘The son of the former Foreign Minister?’

‘The very same. His reaction, I thought, was one of alarm, although he did his best not to show it.’

‘Well, I can ask a few questions for you, Sherlock. Would it trouble you to call on me at the same time tomorrow? In the meantime, I will hang on to this.’ He gathered the white ribbon into his pudgy hand.

But in fact we did not have to wait twenty-four hours for the result of Mycroft’s enquiries. The following morning, at about ten o’clock, we heard the rattle of approaching wheels and, Holmes, who happened to be standing at the window, glanced outside. ‘It’s Mycroft!’ he said.

I came over and joined him in time to see Holmes’s brother being helped down from a landau. I realised at once that this was a remarkable occurrence, for Mycroft had never visited us at Baker Street before and only ever came once again. Holmes himself had fallen silent and there was a very sombre expression on his face, from which I understood that something quite sinister must have introduced itself into the affair to have caused such a momentous event. We had to wait some time for Mycroft to join us in the room. The front stairs were narrow and steep, doubly unsuited to a man of his bulk. Eventually he appeared in the doorway, took one look around him and sat down in the nearest chair. ‘This is where you live?’ he asked.

Holmes nodded.

‘It is exactly as I imagined it. Even the position of the fire — you sit on the right and your friend on the left, of course. Strange, is it not, how we fall into these patterns, how we are dictated to by the space that surrounds us.’

‘Can I offer you some tea?’

‘No, Sherlock. I do not intend to stay long.’ Mycroft took out the envelope and handed it to him. ‘This is yours. I am returning it to you with some advice which I very much hope you will take.’

‘Pray continue.’

‘I do not have the answer to your question. I do not have any idea what the House of Silk is or where it may be found. Believe me when I say that I wish it were otherwise, for then you might have more reason to accept what I am about to say. You must drop this investigation immediately.

You must make no further enquiries. Forget the House of Silk, Sherlock. Never mention those words again.’

‘You know I cannot do that.’

‘I know your character. It is the reason why I have crossed London and come to you personally. It occurred to me that, if I tried to warn you, it would only make you turn this into a personal crusade and I hoped that my coming here would underline the seriousness of what I say. I could have waited until this evening and then informed you that my enquiries had led me nowhere and left you to get on with it. But I could not do that because I am concerned that you are putting yourself into the gravest danger, you and Dr Watson too. Let me explain to you what has happened since our meeting at the Diogenes Club. I approached one or two people that I knew in certain government departments. At the time, I assumed that this House of Silk must refer to some sort of criminal conspiracy and I only wished to discover if anyone in the police or one of the intelligence services was investigating it. The people I spoke to were unable to help. At least, that is what they said.

‘What happened next, however, came as a very unpleasant surprise. As I left my lodgings this morning, I was greeted by a carriage and taken to an office in Whitehall where I met a man whom I cannot identify, but whose name would be known to you and who works in close association with the prime minister himself. I should add that this is a person whom I know well and whose wisdom and judgement I would never question. He was not at all pleased to see me and came straight to the point, asking me why I had been asking about the House of Silk and what I meant by it. His manner, I have to say, Sherlock, was singularly hostile and I had to think very carefully before I replied. I decided at once not to mention your name — otherwise it might not be me who was now knocking at your door. Having said that, it may make no difference anyway, for my relationship with you is well known and you may already be suspected. At any event, I told him merely that one of my informers had mentioned it in relation to a murder in Bermondsey, and that it had piqued my curiosity. He asked for the name of the informer and I made something up, trying to give the impression that it was a trivial affair and that my original enquiry had been nothing more than casual.

‘He seemed to relax a little, although he continued to weigh his words with great caution. He told me that the House of Silk was indeed the subject of a police investigation, and it was for this reason that my sudden request had been referred to him. Things were at a delicate stage and any intervention from an outside party could do untold damage. I don’t think a single word of this was true, but I pretended to acquiesce, regretting that my chance enquiry should have prompted such alarm. We spoke for a few minutes more and, after an exchange of pleasantries and a final apology from myself for wasting this gentleman’s time, I took my leave. But the point is, Sherlock, that politicians at this very senior level have a way of saying a lot whilst giving away very little and this particular gentleman managed to impress upon me what I am now trying to tell you. You must leave it alone! The death of a street child, as tragic as it may be, is completely insignificant when set against the wider picture. Whatever the House of Silk is, it is a matter of national importance. The government is aware of it and is dealing with it and you have no idea of the damage you may do and the scandal you may cause if you continue to be involved. Do you understand me?’

‘You could not have been more lucid.’

‘And will you heed what I have said?’

Holmes reached for a cigarette. He held it for a moment as if wondering whether to light it. ‘I cannot promise that,’ he said. ‘While I feel myself responsible for the death of the child, I owe it to him to do all I can to bring his killer — or killers — to justice. His task was simply to watch over a man in a hotel. But if this inadvertently drew him into some wider conspiracy, then I fear I have no choice but to pursue the matter.’

‘I thought you might say that, Sherlock, and I suppose your words do you credit. But let me add this.’ Mycroft got to his feet. He was anxious to be on his way. ‘If you do ignore my advice and go ahead with this investigation, and if it does lead you into peril, which I believe it may, you cannot that my hands are now tied. At the same time, I urge you once more to think again. This is not one of your petty puzzles of the police court. If you upset the wrong people, it could be the end of your career… and worse.’

There was nothing more to be said. Both brothers recognised it. Mycroft bowed slightly and left. Holmes leant over the gasogene and lit his cigarette. ‘Well, Watson,’ he exclaimed. ‘What do you make of that?’

‘I very much hope you will consider what Mycroft had to say,’ I ventured.

‘I have already considered it.’

‘I rather feared as much.’

Holmes laughed. ‘You know me too well, my boy. And now I must leave you. I have an errand to run and must hurry if I am to make the evening editions.’

He rushed out, leaving me alone with my misgivings. At lunchtime he returned but did not eat, a sure sign that he was engaged upon some stimulating line of enquiry. I had seen him so often like this before. He put me in mind of a foxhound, running upon breast-high scent, for just as an animal will devote its entire being to one activity, so could he allow events to absorb him to the extent that even the most basic human needs — food, water, sleep — could be set aside. The arrival of the evening newspaper showed me what he had done. He had placed an advertisement in the personal columns.

‘Holmes!’ I exclaimed. ‘You have done the very opposite of what your brother suggested. If you were going to pursue your investigation, and I can understand your desire to do so, you could at least have proceeded with discretion.’

‘Discretion will not help us, Watson. It is time to seize the initiative. Mycroft inhabits a world of whispering men in darkened rooms. Well, let us see how they react to a little provocation.’

‘You believe you will receive an answer?’

‘Time will tell. But we have at least set our calling card on this affair, and even if nothing comes of it, no harm has been done.’

Those were his words. But Holmes had no idea of the type of people with whom he was dealing nor the lengths to which they would go to protect themselves. He had entered a veritable miasma of evil, and harm, in the worst possible way, was to come to us all too soon.