The House of Silk

FIVE Lestrade Takes Charge

Quite recently I saw George Lestrade again for what was to be the last time.

He had never fully recovered from the bullet wound he had sustained whilst investigating the bizarre murders that had become known in the popular press as the Clerkenwell Killings, although one of them had taken place in neighbouring Hoxton, and another turned out to be a suicide. By then, he had, of course, long retired from the police force, but he had the kindness to come and seek me out in the home into which I had just moved and we spent the afternoon together, reminiscing. My readers will hardly be surprised to learn that it was the subject of Sherlock Holmes that occupied much of our discourse, and I felt a need to apologise to Lestrade on two counts. First, I had never described him in perhaps the most glowing terms. The words ‘rat-faced’ and ‘ferret-like’ spring to mind. Well, as unkind as it was, it was at least accurate, for Lestrade himself had once joked that a capricious Mother Nature had given him the looks of a criminal rather than a police officer and that, all in all, he might have made himself a richer man had he chosen that profession. Holmes, too, often remarked that his own skills, particularly in matters of lock-picking and forgery, might have made him as equally successful a criminal as he was a detective, and it is amusing to think that, in another world, the two men might have worked together on the wrong side of the law.

But where I perhaps did Lestrade an injustice was in suggesting that he had no intelligence or investigative skill whatsoever. It’s fair to say that Sherlock Holmes occasionally spoke ill of him, but then Holmes was so unique, so intellectually gifted that there was nobody in London who could compete with him and he was equally disparaging about almost every police officer he encountered, apart perhaps from Stanley Hopkins, and his faith, even in that young detective, was often sorely tested. Put simply, next to Holmes, any detective would have found it nigh on impossible to make his mark and even I, who was at his side more often than anyone, sometimes had to remind myself that I was not a complete idiot. But Lestrade was in many ways a capable man. Were you to look in the public records you would find many successful cases that he investigated quite independently and the newspapers always spoke well of him. Even Holmes admired his tenacity. And, when all is said and done, he did finish his career as Assistant Commissioner in charge of the CID at Scotland Yard, even if a large part of his reputation rested on the cases that Holmes had, in fact, solved, but for which he took the credit. Lestrade suggested to me, during our long and pleasant conversation, that he may well have been intimidated when he was in the presence of Sherlock Holmes, and that this might have caused him to function less than effectively. Well, he is gone now and won’t mind, I am sure, if I break his confidence and give him credit where it’s due. He was not a bad man. And at the end of the day, I knew exactly how he felt.

At any event, it was Lestrade who arrived at Mrs Oldmore’s Private Hotel the next morning. And yes, he was as always pale-skinned with bright, sunken eyes and the general demeanour of a rat who has been obliged to dress up for lunch at the Savoy. After Holmes had alerted the constables in the street, the room had been closed off and kept under police guard until the cold touch of light could dispel the shadows and lend itself to a proper investigation, along with the general surroundings of the hotel.

‘Well, well, Mr Holmes,’ he remarked with a hint of irritation. ‘They told me you were expected when I was at Wimbledon and here you are again now.’

‘We have both been following in the footsteps of the unfortunate wretch who has ended his days here,’ retorted Holmes.

Lestrade took one look at the body. ‘This would indeed seem to be the man we have been seeking.’ Holmes said nothing and Lestrade glanced at him sharply. ‘How did you come to find him?’

‘It was absurdly simple. I knew, thanks to the brilliance of your own inquiries, that he had returned on the train to London Bridge. Since then, my agents have been scouring the area and two of them were fortunate enough to come across him in the street.’

‘I assume that you are referring to that gang of urchins you have at your beck and call. I’d keep my distance if I were you, Mr Holmes. No good will come of it. They’re all thieves and pickpockets when they are not being encouraged by you. Is there any sign of the necklace?’

‘There seems to be no obvious sign of it — no. But then I have not yet had a chance to search the room in its entirety.’

‘Then maybe we should start by doing just that.’

Matching his actions to his words, Lestrade examined the room carefully. It was a fairly dismal place with tattered curtains, a mouldering carpet and a bed that looked more exhausted than anyone who might have attempted to sleep in it. A cracked mirror hung on one wall. A washstand stood in the corner with a soiled basin and a single, misshapen lump of cast-iron soap. There was no view. The window looked over a narrow alley to a brick wall opposite, and although it was out of sight and some distance away, the River Thames had permeated the place with its dampness and smell. Next he turned his attentions to the dead man who was dressed as Carstairs had first described him, in a frock coat that came down to his knees, a thick waistcoat and a shirt buttoned to the neck. All of these were saturated with blood. The knife that had killed him had buried itself up to the hilt, penetrating the carotid arterty. My training told me that he would have died instantly. Lestrade searched his pockets but found nothing. Now that I was able to scrutinise him more carefully, I saw that the man who had followed Carstairs to Ridgeway Hall was in his early forties, well built, with thickset shoulders and muscular arms. He had close-cropped hair that had begun to turn grey. Most striking of all was the scar which began at the corner of his mouth and slanted over his cheekbone, narrowly missing his eye. He had come close to death once. He had been less fortunate the second time.

‘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!’

We left her sitting in misery and Lestrade took his leave. ‘I’m sure we’ll run into each other again, Mr Holmes,’ he said. ‘And if you need me, you know where to find me.’

‘If I should ever find myself in need of Inspector Lestrade,’ Holmes muttered after he had gone, ‘then things will have come to a pretty pass. But let us step into the alleyway, Watson. My case is complete and yet there is still one small point which must be addressed.’

We went out of the front of the hotel into the main street and then entered the narrow, litter-strewn alleyway that ran past the room in which the American had met his end. The window was clearly visible about halfway down, with a wooden crate set just beneath it. It was evident that the killer had used this as a step to gain entrance. The window itself had not been locked and would have opened easily from outside. Holmes glanced at the ground in a perfunctory way, but there seemed to be nothing there to attract his attention. Together we followed the alley to the point at which it ended with a high wooden fence and an empty yard beyond. From there, we returned to the main road. By now, Holmes was deep in thought and I could see the unease in his pale, elongated face.

‘You remember the boy — Ross — last night,’ he said.

‘You thought that there was something he was holding back.’

‘And now I am certain of it. From where he was standing, he had a clear view of both the hotel and the alleyway, the end of which, as we have both seen, is blocked. The killer can only have entered, therefore, from the road, and Ross may well have had a sight of who it was.’

‘He certainly seemed ill at ease. But if he saw something, Holmes, why did he not tell us?’

‘Because he had some plan of his own, Watson. In a way, Lestrade was right. These boys live on their wits every hour of their lives. They must learn to do so if they are to survive. If Ross thought that there was money to be made, he would take on the devil himself! And yet there is something here that I don’t understand at all. What is it that this child could possibly have seen? A figure caught in the gaslight, flitting down a passageway and disappearing from sight, perhaps he hears a cry as the blow is struck. Moments later, the killer appears a second time, hurrying away into the night.

Ross remains where he is and a short while later the three of us arrive.’

‘He was afraid,’ he said. ‘He mistook Carstairs for a police officer.’

‘It was more than fear. I would have said the boy was in the grip of something close to terror, but I assumed…’ He struck a hand against his brow. ‘We must find him again and speak with him. I hope I have not been guilty of a grave miscalculation.’

We stopped at a post office on the way back to Baker Street and Holmes sent another wire to Wiggins, the chief lieutenant of his little army of irregulars. But twenty-four hours later, Wiggins had still not reported back to us. And it was a short while after that that we heard the worst possible news. Ross had disappeared.