The House of Silk: The New Sherlock Holmes Novel

SEVEN The White Ribbon

How differently things might have turned out had there not been two public houses in London with the name The Bag of Nails. We knew of one in Edge Lane in the heart of Shoreditch and, believing this to be a likely place of employment for the orphaned sister of a penniless street child, made our way directly there. It was a small, squalid place on a corner, with the stink of old beer and cigarette smoke seeping out of the very woodwork, and yet the landlord was amicable enough, wiping his huge hands on a soiled apron as he examined us across the bar.

‘There’s no Sally working in this place,’ he said, after we had introduced ourselves. ‘Nor has there ever been. What makes you gentlemen think you might find her here?’

‘We’re looking for her brother, a boy called Ross.’

He shook his head. ‘I know no Ross, neither. You’re sure you’ve been directed to the right place? There’s a Bag of Nails over in Lambeth, I believe. Maybe you should try your luck there.’

We were back out in the street immediately and soon crossing London in a hansom, but already it was late in the day and by the time we reached the lower quarter of Lambeth it was almost dark. The second Bag of Nails was more welcoming than the first, but conversely, its landlord was less so, a surly, bearded fellow with a broken nose that had set badly and a scowl to match.

‘Sally?’ he demanded. ‘What Sally would that be?’

‘We know only her first name,’ Holmes responded. ‘And the fact that she has a younger brother, Ross.’

‘Sally Dixon? Is that the girl you want? She has a brother. You’ll find her round the back but you’ll tell me what you want with her first.’

‘We wish only to speak with her,’ Holmes replied. Once again, I could feel the tension burning within him, the unremitting sense of energy and drive that propelled him through his every case. There was never a man who felt it more when circumstances conspired to frustrate him. He slid a few coins onto the bar. ‘This is to recompense you for her time.’

‘There’s no need for that,’ returned the landlord but he took the money anyway. ‘Very well. She’ll be in the yard. But I doubt you’ll get very much from her. She’s not the most talkative of girls. I’d get better company employing a mute.’

There was a courtyard behind the building, its stones still wet and glistening from the rain. It was filled with scrap of every description, the different pieces rising high up the walls that surrounded the place, and I could not help but wonder how it had come here. I saw a broken piano, a child’s rocking horse, a birdcage, several bicycles, half-chairs, half-tables … all manner of furniture, but nothing whole. A pile of broken crates stood on one side, old coal bags stuffed with Lord knows what on the other. There was smashed glass, great piles of paper, twisted fragments of metal and, in the middle of it, barefoot and in a dress too thin for this weather, a girl of about sixteen, sweeping what space was still available, as if it would make any difference. I recognised in her the same looks as her younger brother. Her hair was fair, her eyes blue and, but for the circumstances in which she found herself, I would have said she was pretty. But the cruel touch of poverty and hardship was also evident in the sharp line of her cheekbones, the arms as thin as sticks and the grime embedded in her hands and cheeks. When she looked up, her face showed only suspicion and contempt. Sixteen! And what had her life been to bring her here?

We stood in front of her, but she continued with her work, ignoring us both.

‘Miss Dixon?’ Holmes asked. The brushes of the broom swept back and forth, the rhythm unbroken. ‘Sally?’

She stopped and slowly raised her head, examining us. ‘Yes?’ I saw that her hands had closed around the broom handle, clutching it as if it were a weapon.

‘We don’t wish to alarm you,’ Holmes said. ‘We mean you no harm.’

‘What do you want?’ Her eyes were fierce. Neither of us was standing close to her. We would not dare to.

‘We wish to speak to your brother, to Ross.’

Her hands tightened. ‘Who are you?’

‘We are his friends.’

‘Are you from the House of Silk? Ross is not here. He has never been here — and you will not find him.’

‘We want to help him.’

‘Of course you would say that. Well, I’m telling you, he’s not here. You can both go away! You make me sick. Go back where you came from.’

Holmes glanced at me and, hoping to be of service, I took one step towards the girl. I had thought I would reassure her but I had made a grievous mistake. I am still not sure what happened. I saw the broom fall and heard Holmes cry out. Then the girl seemed to punch the air in front of me and I felt something white hot slice across my chest. I staggered back, pressing my hand against the front of my coat. When I looked down, I saw blood trickling between my fingers. So shocked was I, it took me a moment to realise that I had been stabbed, either with a knife or a shard of glass. For a moment, the girl stood in front of me, not a child at all but snarling like an animal, her eyes ablaze, her lips drawn back in a ferocious grimace. Holmes rushed to my side. ‘My dear Watson!’ Then there was a movement behind me.

‘What’s going on here?’ The landlord had appeared. The girl let out a single, guttural howl, then turned and fled through a narrow archway leading out into the street.

I was in pain, but I already knew that I had not been seriously injured. The thickness of my coat and my jacket underneath had protected me from the worst of what the blade might have achieved, and later that evening I would dress and disinfect a relatively minor wound. Thinking back now, I remember that there would be another occasion, ten years later, when I would be hurt while in the company of Sherlock Holmes and, strange though it may sound, I felt almost a sense of gratitude towards both my attackers who demonstrated that my physical well-being did at least mean something to the great man and that he was not as coldly disposed towards me as he sometimes pretended.

‘Watson?’

‘It’s nothing. Holmes. A scratch.’

‘What’s happened?’ the landlord demanded. He was staring at my bloodstained hands. ‘What did you do to her?’

‘You might ask what she has done to me,’ I grunted, although even in the shock of the moment I was unable to feel any rancour towards this poor, malnourished child who had struck out at me in fear and incomprehension and who had not really wished me any harm.

‘The girl was frightened,’ Holmes said. ‘Are you sure you are not hurt, Watson? Come inside. You need to sit down.’

‘No, Holmes. I assure you, it is not as bad as it seems.’

‘Thank heaven for that. We must call at once for a hansom. Landlord, it was the girl’s brother that we came here to find. A boy of thirteen, fair-haired also, shorter than her and better fed.’

‘You mean Ross?’

‘You know him?’

‘I told you. He has been working here with her. You should have asked for him in the first place.’

‘Is he here now?’

‘No. He came a few days ago, needing a roof above his head. I said he could share with his sister in return for work in the kitchen. Sally has a room beneath the stairs and he went in with her. But the boy was more trouble than he was worth, never around when he was needed. I don’t know what he was up to, but he had some sort of business in his mind, that I can tell you. He hurried out just before you arrived.’

‘Do you have any idea where he went?’

‘No. The girl might have told you. But now she’s gone too.’

‘I must see to my friend. But should either of them return, it is urgent that you send a message to my lodgings at 221B Baker Street. Here is further money for your pains. Come, Watson. Lean on me. I think I hear an approaching cab …’

And so the day’s adventure ended with the two of us sitting close by the fire, I with a restorative brandy and soda, Holmes smoking furiously. I took a moment to reflect on the circumstances that had brought us to this point, for it seemed to me that we had strayed a great distance from our original quarry, the man with the flat cap or indeed the identity of the person who had killed him. Was this the person that Ross had seen outside Mrs Oldmore’s Private Hotel, and if so, how could the boy have possibly recognised him? Somehow, that chance encounter had led him to believe that he could make some money for himself, and since then he had vanished from sight. He must have told his sister something of his intentions, for she had been afraid on his behalf. It was almost as if she had been expecting us. Why else would she have been carrying a weapon? And then there were those words of hers. ‘Are you from the House of Silk?’ On our return Holmes had searched through his index and the various encyclopaedias that he kept on his shelves but we were none the wiser as to what she had meant. We did not speak of any of this together. I was exhausted, and I could see that my friend was preoccupied with his own thoughts. We would just have to wait and see what the next day would bring.

What it brought was a police constable, knocking at our door just after breakfast.

‘Inspector Lestrade sends his compliments, sir. He is at Southwark Bridge and would be most grateful if you could join him.’

‘On what business, officer?’

‘Murder, sir. And a very nasty one.’

We put on our coats and left at once, taking a cab over Southwark Bridge, crossing the three great cast-iron arches that spanned the river from Cheapside. Lestrade was waiting for us on the south bank, standing with a group of policemen who were clustered around what looked, from a distance, like a small heap of discarded rags. The sun was shining, but it was once again bitterly cold and the Thames water had never been crueller, the grey waves beating monotonously at the shore. We descended a spiral staircase of grey metal that twisted down from the road, and walked over the mud and shingle. It was low tide and the river seemed to have shrunk back, as if in distaste at what had happened here. There was a steamboat pier jutting out a short distance away with a few passengers waiting, stamping their hands, their breath frosting in the air. They seemed utterly divorced from the scene that presented itself to us. They belonged to life. Here there was only death.

‘Is he the one you were looking for?’ Lestrade asked. ‘The boy from the hotel?’

Holmes nodded. Perhaps he did not trust himself to speak.

The boy had been beaten brutally. His ribs had been smashed, his arms, his legs, each one of his fingers. Looking at those dreadful injuries, I knew at once that they had all been been inflicted methodically, one at a time, and that death, for Ross, would have been one long tunnel of pain. Finally, at the end of it all, his throat had been cut so savagely that his head had almost been separated from his neck. I had seen dead bodies before, both with Holmes and during my time as an army surgeon, but I had never seen anything as dreadful as this, and I found it far beyond understanding that any human being could have done this to a thirteen-year-old boy.

‘It’s a bad business,’ Lestrade said. ‘What can you tell me about him, Holmes? Was he in your employ?’

‘His name was Ross Dixon,’ Holmes replied. ‘I know very little about him, Inspector. You might ask at the Chorley Grange School for Boys in Hamworth, but there may not be much that they are able to add. He was an orphan, but he has a sister who worked until recently at The Bag of Nails public house in Lambeth. You may yet find her there. Have you examined the body?’

‘We have. His pockets were empty. But there is something strange that you should see, though heaven knows what it signifies. It made me sickish — I’ll tell you that much.’

Lestrade nodded and one of the policemen knelt down and took hold of one of the small, broken, arms. The sleeve of his shirt fell back to reveal a white ribbon, knotted around the boy’s wrist. ‘The fabric is new,’ Lestrade said. ‘It’s a good quality silk from the look of it. And see — it is untouched by blood or by any of this Thames filth. I would say, therefore, that it was placed on the boy after he was killed, as some sort of sign.’

‘The House of Silk!’ I exclaimed.

‘What’s that?’

‘Do you know of it, Lestrade?’ Holmes asked. ‘Does it mean anything to you?’

‘No. The House of Silk? Is it a factory? I’ve never heard of it.’

‘But I have.’ Holmes stared into the distance, his eyes filled with horror and self-reproach. ‘The white ribbon, Watson! I have seen it before.’ He turned back to Lestrade. ‘Thank you for calling me out and for informing me of this.’

‘I hoped you might be able to shed some light on the matter. It may be, after all, that this is your fault.’

‘Fault?’ Holmes jerked round as though he had been stung.

‘I warned you about about mixing with these children. You employed the boy. You set him on the trail of a known criminal. I grant you, he may have had his own ideas and they may have been the ruin of him. But this is the result.’

I cannot say if Lestrade was being deliberately provocative but his words had an effect on Holmes that I was able to witness for myself on the journey back to Baker Street. He had sunk into the corner of the hansom and for much of the way he sat in silence, refusing to meet my eyes. His skin seemed to have stretched itself over his cheekbones and he appeared more gaunt than ever, as if he had been struck down by some virulent disease. I did not try to speak to him. I knew he needed no consolation from me. Instead, I watched and waited as he brought that enormous intellect of his to bear on the terrible turn that this adventure had taken.

‘It may be that Lestrade was right,’ he said at length. ‘Certainly, I have used my Baker Street Irregulars without much thought or consideration. It amused me to have them lined up in front of me, to give them a shilling or two, but I have never wantonly put them in harm’s way, Watson. You know that. And yet I stand accused of dilettantism and must plead guilty. Wiggins, Ross and the rest of them were nothing to me, just as they are nothing to the society that has abandoned them to the streets, and it never occurred to me that this horror might be the result of my actions. Do not interrupt me! Would I have allowed a young boy to stand alone outside a hotel in the darkness had it been your son or mine? And the logic of what has taken place seems inescapable. The child saw the killer enter the hotel. We both saw how it afflicted him. Even so, he thought he could turn the situation to his advantage. He attempted to do so and he died. For that I must hold myself responsible.

‘And yet! And yet! How does the House of Silk fit into this conundrum and what are we to make of the strip of silk around the boy’s wrist? That is the crux of the matter and once again I am blameworthy. I was warned! That’s the truth of it. Honestly, Watson, there are times when I wonder if I shouldn’t leave this profession and seek my fortune elsewhere. There are a few monographs I would still like to write. I have always had a fancy to keep bees. Certainly, on the strength of my achievements so far in the investigation of this case, I have no right to call myself a detective. A child is dead. You saw what they did to him. How am I to live with that?’

‘My dear chap …’

‘Say nothing. There is something I must show you. I was forewarned. I could have prevented it …’

We had arrived back. Holmes plunged into the building, taking the stairs two at a time. I followed more slowly, for although I had said nothing, the wound I had sustained the day before was hurting far more than it had at the time it was inflicted. As I arrived in our sitting room, I saw him lean forward and seize hold of an envelope. It was one of my friend’s many singularities that, although he lived in surroundings of extreme clutter and even chaos, with letters and documents piled up everywhere, he could find whatever he was looking for without a second thought. ‘Here it is!’ he announced. ‘The envelope tells us nothing. My name is written on the front but not the address. It was hand delivered. Whoever sent it made no attempt to disguise his handwriting and I would certainly recognise it again. You will notice the Greek e in Holmes. That unusual top flourish will not slip my mind easily.’

‘And what is inside it?’ I asked.

‘You can see for yourself,’ replied Holmes, and passed me the envelope.

I opened it and, with a shiver that I could not disguise, drew out a short length of white, silk ribbon. ‘What is the meaning of this, Holmes?’ I asked.

‘I asked myself the same when I received it. In retrospect, it would seem to have been a warning.’

‘When was it sent?’

‘Seven weeks ago. At the time I was involved in a bizarre affair that involved a pawnbroker, Mr Jabez Wilson, who had been invited to join—’

‘—the red-headed league!’ I interrupted, for I remembered the case well and had been fortunate enough to see it to its conclusion.

‘Exactly. That was a three-pipe problem if ever there was one, and when this envelope arrived, my mind was elsewhere. I examined the contents and tried to work out their significance but, being otherwise engaged, I set it aside and forgot it. Now, as you can see, it has come back to haunt me.’

‘But who would have sent it to you? And to what purpose?’

‘I have no idea, but for the sake of that murdered child, I intend to find out.’ Holmes reached out and took the strip of silk from me. He laced it through his skeletal fingers and held it in front of him, examining it in the way that a man might a poisonous snake. ‘If this was directed to me as a challenge, it is one I now accept,’ he said. He punched at the air, his fist closing on the white ribbon. ‘And I tell you, Watson, that I shall make them rue the day that it was sent.’