The House of Silk: The New Sherlock Holmes Novel

EIGHTEEN The Fortune-Teller

There are, I think, occasions when you know that you have arrived at the end of a long journey, when, even though your destination is still concealed from sight, you are somehow aware that when you turn the corner that lies just ahead of you, there it will be. That was how I felt as I approached The Bag of Nails a second time, just before five o’clock, with the sun already down and a chill, unforgiving darkness descending on the city. Mary had been asleep when I returned home and I had not disturbed her, but as I had stood there in my consulting room, weighing my revolver in my hand and checking that it was fully loaded, I wondered what a casual observer would make of the scene: a respectable doctor in Kensington arming himself and preparing to set out in pursuit of a conspiracy that had so far encompassed murder, torture, kidnap and the perversion of justice. I slipped the weapon into my pocket, reached for my greatcoat and went out.

Holmes was no longer in disguise, apart from a hat and a scarf which he had drawn across the lower part of his face. He had ordered two brandies to brace us against the bitterness of the night. I would not have been surprised if it had snowed, for there had already been a few flakes blowing in the breeze as I arrived. We barely spoke, but I remember that as we set the glasses down he glanced at me, and I saw all the good humour and resoluteness that I knew so well, positively dancing in his eyes and understood that he was as eager as I to have this done with.

‘So, Watson …?’ he asked.

‘Yes, Holmes,’ I said. ‘I am ready.’

‘And I am very glad to have you once again at my side.’

A cab carried us east and we descended on the Whitechapel Road, walking the remaining distance to Jackdaw Lane. These travelling fairs could be found all over the countryside during the summer months but came into the city as soon as the weather turned and they were notorious for the late hours they kept and the din that they made — indeed, I wondered how the local populace could possibly endure Dr Silkin’s House of Wonders, for I heard it long before I saw it; the grinding of an organ, the beat of a drum, and a man’s voice shouting into the night. Jackdaw Lane was a narrow passageway running between the Whitechapel and Commercial Roads, with buildings, mainly shops and warehouses, rising three storeys on either side with windows that seemed too small for the amount of bricks that surrounded them. An alleyway opened out about halfway down and it was here that a man had imposed himself, dressed in a frock coat, an old-fashioned four-in-hand necktie and a top hat so beaten about that it seemed to be perched on the side of his head as if trying to throw itself off. He had the beard, the moustache, the pointed nose and the bright eyes of a pantomime Mephistopheles.

‘One penny entrance!’ he exclaimed. ‘Step inside and you will not regret it. Here you will see some of the wonders of the world from Negros to Esquimaux and more besides. Come, gentlemen! Dr Silkin’s House of Wonders. It will amaze you. It will astonish you. Never will you forget what you see here tonight.’

‘You are Dr Silkin?’ Holmes asked.

‘I have that honour, sir. Dr Asmodeus Silkin, late of India, late of the Congo. My travels have taken me all over the world and all that I have experienced you will find here for the sum of a single penny.’

A black dwarf in a pea jacket and military trousers stood next to him, beating out a rhythm on a drum and adding a loud roll every time the penny was mentioned. We paid over two coins and were duly ushered through.

The spectacle that awaited us took me by quite surprise. I suppose in the harsh light of the day it might have been revealed in all its tawdry shabbiness but the night, held at bay by a ring of burning braziers, had lent it a certain exoticism so that if you did not look too closely you really could believe that you had been transported to another world … perhaps one in a storybook.

We were in a cobbled yard, surrounded by buildings in such a state of disrepair that they were partly open to the elements with crumbling doorways and rickety staircases dangling precariously from the brickwork. Some of these entranceways had been hung with crimson curtains and signs advertising entertainments that a further payment of a halfpence or farthing would provide. The man with no neck. The world’s ugliest woman. The five-legged pig. Others were open, with waxworks and peep shows providing a glimpse of the sort of horrors that I knew all too well from my time with Holmes. Murder seemed to be the predominant theme. Maria Martin was there, as was Mary Ann Nichols, lying with her throat slit and her abdomen open just as she had been when she was discovered not far from here, two years before. I heard the crack of rifles. A shooting gallery had been set up inside one of the buildings, I could make out the gas flames jetting and the green bottles standing at the far end.

These attractions and others were contained in the outer perimeter, but there were also gypsy wagons parked in the courtyard itself, with platforms constructed between them for performances that would continue throughout the night. A pair of identical twins, orientals, were juggling a dozen balls, hurling them between them with such fluidity that they made it seem automatic. A black man in a loincloth held up a poker that had been made red-hot in a charcoal burner and licked it with his tongue. A woman in a cumbersome, feathered turban read palms. An elderly magician performed parlour tricks. And all around, a crowd, far larger than I would have expected — there must have been more than two hundred people there — laughed and applauded, wandering aimlessly from performance to performance while a barrel organ jangled ceaselessly around them. I noticed a woman of monstrous girth strolling before me and another so tiny that she could have been a child, but for her elderly appearance. Were they spectators or part of spectacle? It was hard to be sure.

‘So, what now?’ Holmes asked me.

‘I really have no idea,’ I replied.

‘Do you still believe this to be the House of Silk?’

‘It seems unlikely, I agree.’ I suddenly realised the import of what he had just said. ‘Are you telling me that you do not think it is?’

‘I knew from the outset that there was no possibility of it so being.’

For once, I could not hide my irritation ‘I have to say, Holmes, that there are times when you try my patience to the limit. If you knew from the start that this was not the House of Silk then perhaps you can tell me — why are we here?’

‘Because we are supposed to be. We were invited.’

‘The advertisement …?’

‘It was meant to be discovered, Watson. And you were meant to give it to me.’

I could only shake my head at these enigmatic answers and decided that, following his ordeal in Holloway prison, Holmes had returned entirely to his old self — secretive, over-confident and thoroughly annoying. And still I was determined to prove him wrong. Surely it could not be a coincidence, the name of Dr Silkin on the advertisements, the fact that one had been found concealed beneath Ross’s bed. If it was meant to be discovered, why place it there? I looked around me, searching for anything that might be worth my attention, but in the whirl of activity, with the flames of the torches flickering and dancing, it was almost impossible to settle on anything that might be relevant. The jugglers were throwing swords at each other now. There was another rifle shot and one of the bottles exploded, showering glass over the shelf. The magician reached into the air and produced a bouquet of silk flowers. The crowd, standing around him, applauded.

‘Well, we might as well …’ I began.

But then, at that very moment, I saw something and my breath caught in my throat. It could, of course, be a coincidence. It might mean nothing at all. Perhaps I was trying to read some significance into a tiny detail simply to justify our presence here. But it was the fortune-teller. She was sitting on a sort of raised platform in front of her caravan behind a table on which were spread out the tools of her trade: a deck of tarot cards, a crystal ball, a silver pyramid and a few sheets of paper with strange runes and diagrams. She had been gazing in my direction and, as I caught her eye, it seemed to me that she raised a hand in salutation, and there it was, tied around her wrist: a length of white, silk ribbon.

My immediate thought was to alert Sherlock Holmes but almost at once I decided against it. I felt I had been ridiculed enough for one evening. And so, without explanation, I left his side, wandering forward as if drawn by idle curiosity and then climbed the few steps to the platform. The gypsy woman surveyed me as if she had not just expected me to come but had foreseen it. She was a large, masculine woman with a heavy jaw and mournful, grey eyes.

‘I would like to have my fortune told,’ I said.

‘Sit down,’ she replied. She had a foreign accent and a manner of speech that was surly and unwelcoming. There was a footstool opposite her in the cramped space and I lowered myself onto it.

‘Can you see the future?’ I asked.

‘It will cost you a penny.’

I paid her the money and she took my hand, spreading it in her own so that the white ribbon was right before me. Then she stretched out a withered finger and began to trace the lines on my palm as if she could smooth them out with her touch. ‘A doctor?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And married. Happily. No children.’

‘You are quite correct on all three counts.’

‘You have recently known the pain of a separation.’ Was she referring to my wife’s sojourn in Camberwell or to the brief imprisonment of Holmes? And how could she possibly know of either? I am now, and was then, a sceptic. How could I fail to be? In my time with Holmes I found myself investigating a family curse, a giant rat and a vampire — and all three turned out to have perfectly rational explanations. I therefore waited for the gypsy to reveal to me the source of her trickery.

‘Have you come here alone?’ she asked.

‘No. I am with a friend.’

‘Then I have a message for you. You will have seen a shooting range contained in the building behind us.’

‘Yes.’

‘You will discover all the answers that you seek in the rooms above it. But tread carefully, doctor. The building is condemned and the floor is lousy. You have a long lifeline. You see it here? But it has weaknesses. These creases … They are like arrows being fired towards you and there are still many more to come. You should beware lest one of them should hit …’

‘Thank you.’ I took my hand back as if snatching it from the flames. As sure as I was that the woman was a fake, there was something about her performance that had unnerved me. Perhaps it was the night, the scarlet shadows writhing all about me, or it could have been the constant cacophony, the music and the crowds, that were overwhelming my senses. But I had a sudden instinct that this was an evil place and that we should never have come. I climbed back down to Holmes and told him what had just transpired.

‘So are we now to be guided by fortune-tellers?’ was his brusque response. ‘Well, Watson, there are no other obvious alternatives. We must see this through to the end.’

We made our way past a man with a monkey that had climbed onto his shoulder and another, naked to the waist, exposing a myriad of lurid tattoos which he animated by flexing his various muscles. The shooting gallery was before us, with a staircase twisting unevenly above. There was a volley of rifle shots. A group of apprentices were trying their luck at the bottles, but they had been drinking and their bullets disappeared harmlessly into the darkness. With Holmes leading the way, we climbed up, treading carefully, for the wooden steps gave every impression of being on the edge of collapse. Ahead of us, an irregular gap in the wall — it might once have been a door — loomed open, with only darkness beyond. I looked back and saw the gypsy woman sitting in her caravan, watching us with an evil eye. The white ribbon still dangled from her wrist. Before I reached the top I knew that I had been deceived, that we should not have come here.

We entered the upper floor which must once have been used for the storage of coffee for the smell of it was still apparent in the grimy air. But now it was empty. The walls were mouldering. The dust was thick on every surface. The floorboards creaked beneath our feet. The music from the barrel organ seemed distant now and cut off and the murmur of the crowd had disappeared altogether. There was still enough light reflecting from the torches which blazed all around the fair to illuminate the room but it was uneven, constantly moving in such a way as to cast distorted shadows all around us, and the further we went in, the darker it would become.

‘Watson …’ Holmes muttered, and the tone of his voice was enough to tell me what he desired. I produced my gun and found comfort in its weight, in the touch of cold metal against my palm.

‘Holmes,’ I said. ‘We are wasting our time. There is nothing here.’

‘And yet a child has been here before us,’ replied he.

I looked beyond him and saw, lying on the floor in the far corner, two toys that had been abandoned there. One was a spindle top, the other a lead soldier standing stiffly to attention with most of its paint worn away. There was something infinitely pathetic about them. Had they once belonged to Ross? Had this been a place of refuge for him before he was killed and these the only souvenirs of a childhood he had never really had? I found myself drawn towards them, walking away from the entrance, just as had been intended, for too late did I see the man step out from behind an alcove, nor could I avoid the cudgel that came sweeping through the air towards me. I was struck on the arm below the elbow and felt my fingers jerk open in a blaze of white pain. The gun cluttered the ground. I lunged for it, but was struck a second time, a blow that sent me sprawling. At the same time, a second voice came out of the darkness.

‘Don’t either of you move or I’ll shoot you where you stand.’

Holmes ignored the instruction. He was already at my side, helping me to my feet. ‘Watson, are you all right? I will never forgive myself if they have done you serious injury.’

‘No, no.’ I clasped my arm, searching for any break or fracture and knew at once that I had only been badly bruised. ‘I’m not hurt.’

‘Cowards!’

A man with thinning hair, an upturned nose and heavy, round shoulders stepped towards us, allowing the light from outside to fall across his face. I recognised Henderson, the tidewaiter (or so he claimed) who had sent Holmes into the trap at Creer’s opium den. He had told us that he was an addict, and that must have been one of the only true parts of his story, for he still had the bloodshot eyes and sickly pallor that I remembered. He was holding a revolver. At the same time, his accomplice picked up my own weapon and shuffled forward, keeping it trained on us. This second man I did not know. He was burly, toad-like, with close-cropped hair and swollen ears and lips, like those of a boxer after a bad fight. His cudgel was actually a heavy walking stick, which still dangled from his left hand.

‘Good evening, Henderson,’ Holmes remarked in a voice in which I could detect nothing more than equanimity. From the way he spoke, he could have been casually greeting an old acquaintance.

‘You are not surprised to see me, Mr Holmes?’

‘On the contrary, I had fully expected it.’

‘And you remember my friend, Bratby?’

Holmes nodded. He turned to me. ‘This was the man who held me down in the office at Creer’s Place, when the opiate was forced on me,’ he explained. ‘I had rather hoped he might be here too.’

Henderson hesitated, then laughed. Gone was any pretence of the weakness or inferiority that he had displayed when he had come to our lodgings. ‘I don’t believe you, Mr Holmes. I am afraid that you are all too easily gulled. You did not find what you were looking for at Creer’s. You haven’t found it here, either. It seems to me that you will go off like a firework … in any direction.’

‘And what are your intentions?’

‘I would have thought that would be obvious to you. We thought we’d dealt with you at Holloway Prison, and it would have been better for you, all in all, if you’d stayed there. So this time our methods are going to be a little more direct. I have been instructed to kill you, to shoot you like a dog.’

‘In that event, would you be so kind as to satisfy my curiosity on a just a couple of points? Was it you who killed the girl at Bluegate Fields?’

‘As a matter of fact it was. She was stupid enough to return to the public house where she worked and it was easy enough to pick her up.’

‘And her brother?’

‘Little Ross? Yes, that was us. It was a horrible thing to have to do, Mr Holmes, but he brought it upon himself. The boy stepped out of line and we had to make an example of him.’

‘Thank you very much. It is exactly as I thought.’

Henderson laughed a second time but never had I seen an expression more devoid of good humour. ‘Well, you’re a cool enough customer, aren’t you, Mr Holmes? And I suppose you’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you!’

‘Of course.’

‘And when that old bird sent you up here, you knew she’d been waiting for you?’

‘The fortune-teller spoke to my colleague, not to me. I assume you paid her to do your bidding?’

‘Cross her palm with sixpence and she’d do anything.’

‘I expected another trap, yes.’

‘Let’s get it over with,’ the man called Bratby urged.

‘Not yet, Jason. Not quite yet.’

For once, I did not need Holmes to explain why they were waiting. I saw it all too clearly for myself. When we had been climbing the stairs, there had been a crowd gathered around the shooting gallery with the shots ringing out below. Now, for the moment, it was silent. The two assassins were waiting for the crack of the rifles to recommence. The sound would mask two further gunshots up here. Murder is the most horrible crime of which a human being is capable, but this coldblooded, calculated, double murder struck me as particularly vile. I was still clutching my arm. All sense of feeling had left me where I had been struck, but I dragged myself to my feet, determined that I would not be killed by these men while I was on my knees.

‘You might as well put down your weapons and give yourselves up now,’ Holmes remarked. He was utterly calm and I began to wonder if he had indeed known all along that the two men would be here.

‘What?’

‘There is going to be no killing tonight. The shooting gallery is closed. The fair is over. Do you not hear?’

For the first time, I realised that the barrel organ had stopped. The crowd seemed to have departed. Outside this empty and derelict room, all was silent.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I did not believe you the first time we met, Henderson. But then it was expedient to walk into your trap, if only to see what you were planning. But do you really believe I would do the same a second time?’

‘Put those guns down!’ a voice cried out.

In the next few seconds, there was such a confusion of events that, at the time, I was barely able to make any sense of them. Henderson brought his gun round, meaning to fire either at me or past me. I will never know, for his finger was never able to tighten on the trigger. At the same moment, there was a fusillade of shots, the muzzle of a gun flashing white, and he was literally thrown off his feet, a fountain of blood bursting from his head. Henderson’s associate, the man he had referred to as Bratby, spun round. I do not think he intended to fire but it was enough that he was armed. A bullet hit him in the shoulder and another in the chest. I heard him cry out as he was thrown back, my gun flying out of his hand. There was a clatter as his walking stick hit the wooden floorboards and rolled away. He was not dead. Wheezing, sobbing in pain and shock, he crumpled to the ground. There was a brief pause, the silence almost as shocking as the violence that had gone before.

‘You left that very late, Lestrade,’ Holmes remarked.

‘I was interested to hear what the villain said,’ the same replied. I looked round and saw that Inspector Lestrade was indeed here, and three police officers with him, already entering the room, checking on the men who had been shot.

‘You heard him confess to the murders?’

‘Yes, indeed, Mr Holmes.’ One of his men had reached Henderson. He examined him briefly and shook his head. I had seen the wound. I was not surprised. ‘I’m afraid he will not face justice for his crimes.’

‘Some might say he already has.’

‘Even so, I would have preferred him alive, if only as a witness. I’ve put my neck on the line for you, Mr Holmes, and this night’s work could still cost me dear.’

‘It will cost you another commendation, Lestrade, and well you know it.’ Holmes turned his attention to me. ‘How are you bearing up, Watson? Are you hurt?’

‘Nothing that a little embrocation and a whisky and soda won’t cure,’ I replied. ‘But tell me, Holmes. You knew all along that this was a trap?’

‘I strongly suspected it. It seemed inconceivable to me that an illiterate child would keep an advertisement folded beneath his bed. And as our late friend, Henderson, said, we had already been deceived once. I am beginning to learn how our enemies work.’

‘Meaning …?’

‘They used you to find me. The men who followed you to Holborn Viaduct were not police officers. They were in the employ of our enemies, who had provided you with what appeared to be an irresistible clue in the hope that you would know of my whereabouts and would deliver it to me.’

‘But the name, Dr Silkin’s House of Wonders. Are you telling me that he has nothing to do with it?’

‘My dear Watson! Silkin is not so uncommon a name. They could have used Silkin the bootmaker in Ludgate Circus or Silkin the timber yard in Battersea. Or Silkman or Silk Way or anything that would have us believe we were closing in on the House of Silk. It was only necessary to draw me into the open so that they could finally be rid of me.’

‘What of you, Lestrade? How did you come to be here?’

‘Mr Holmes approached me and asked me to come, Dr Watson.’

‘You believed in his innocence!’

‘I never doubted it from the start. And when I looked into that matter at Coppergate Square it soon became clear that there was something crooked about the affair. Inspector Harriman said he was on his way from a bank robbery on the White Horse Road, but there was no such robbery. I looked in the report book. I visited the bank. And it seemed to me that if Harriman was prepared to lie about that in court, he might be prepared to lie about quite a few other things too.’

‘Lestrade took a gamble,’ Holmes cut in. ‘For his first instinct was to return me to the prison authorities. But he and I know each other well, whatever our differences, and have collaborated too often to fall out over a false accusation. Is that not true, Lestrade?’

‘Whatever you say, Mr Holmes.’

‘And at heart, he is as eager as I to bring an end to this affair and to bring the true culprits to justice.’

‘This one is alive!’ one of the police officers exclaimed. While Holmes and I had been talking, they had been examining our two assailants.

Holmes crossed over to where Bratby lay and knelt beside him. ‘Can you hear me, Bratby?’ he asked. There was silence, then a soft whining like a child in pain. ‘There is nothing we can do for you but you still have time to make some amends, to atone for some of your crimes before you meet your maker.’

Very quietly, Bratby began to sob.

‘I know everything about the House of Silk. I know what it is. I know where it is to be found … indeed, I visited it last night but found it empty and silent. That is the one piece of information which I have no way of discovering for myself and yet it is vital if we are to bring an end to this business once and for all. For the good of your own salvation, tell me. When does it next meet?’

There was a long silence. Despite myself, I felt a surge of pity for this man who was about to breathe his last even though he had intended to kill me — and Holmes with me — just a few minutes before. For all men are equal at the moment of death and who are we to judge them when a much greater judge awaits?

‘Tonight,’ he said. And died.

Holmes straightened up. ‘At last fortune is on our side, Lestrade,’ he said. ‘Will you accompany me a little further? And do you have at least ten men with you? They will need to be steadfast and resolute for, I promise you, they will not forget what we are about to reveal.’

‘We’re with you, Holmes,’ Lestrade replied. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

Holmes had my gun. I had not seen when he had retrieved it, but once again he pressed it into my hand, looking me in the eyes. I knew what he was asking. I nodded and together we set off.