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 yo
u 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.’
EIGHT
A Raven and Two Keys
Sally had not returned to her place of work that night nor the following morning. This was hardly surprising, given that she had attacked me and would surely be in fear of the consequences. In addition, the death of her brother had now been reported in the newspapers and although his name had not been mentioned, it was quite possible that she would know it was he who had been found beneath Southwark Bridge, for that was how it was in those days, particularly in the poorer parts of the city. Bad news had a way of spreading like smoke from a fire, trickling its way through every crowded room, every squalid basement, soft and insistent, smearing everything it touched. The landlord of The Bag of Nails knew that Ross was dead – he had already been visited by Lestrade and he was even less pleased to see us than he had been the day before.
‘Have you not caused enough trouble already?’ he demanded. ‘That girl may not have amounted to much but she was still a good pair of hands and I’m sorry to have lost her. And it’s not good for business, having the law about the place! I wish the two of you had never shown up.’
‘It was not we who brought the trouble, Mr Hardcastle,’ Holmes replied, for he had read the landlord’s name – Ephraim Hardcastle – above the door. ‘It was here already and we merely followed. It seems likely that you were the last person to see the boy alive. Did he tell you nothing before he left?’
‘Why would he speak to me or I to him?’
‘But you said that he had some business on his mind.’
‘I knew nothing of that.’
‘He was tortured to death, Mr Hardcastle, his bones broken one at a time. I have sworn to find his killer and bring him to justice. I cannot do so if you refuse to help.’
The landlord nodded slowly and when he spoke again it was in more measured tones. ‘Very well. The boy turned up three nights ago with some story about having fallen out with his neighbours and needing a crib until he could sort himself out. Sally asked my permission and I gave my assent. Why not? You’ve seen the yard. There’s a whole load of rubbish to be cleared out and I thought he could help. He did a little work too, on that first day, but in the afternoon he went out, and when he came back, I saw he was very pleased with himself.’
‘Did his sister know what he was doing?’
‘She might have, but she said nothing to me.’
‘Pray continue.’
‘I have little more to add, Mr Holmes. I saw him only one more time and that was in the minutes before you arrived. He came into the public bar while I was carrying up the casks and asked me the time, which only showed how ill-educated he was, because you can read it as clear as day on the church across the road.’
‘Then he was on his way to a fixed appointment.’
‘I suppose it’s possible.’
‘It’s certain. What use would a child such as Ross have with the time unless he had been asked to present himself in a certain place at a certain time? You said that he spent three nights here with his sister.’
‘He shared her room.’
‘I would like to see it.’
‘The police have already been there. They searched it and found nothing.’
‘I am not the police.’ Holmes placed a few shillings on the bar. ‘This is for your inconvenience.’
‘Very well. But I will not take your money this time. You are on the trail of a monster and it will be enough if you do as you say and make sure he can’t hurt anyone else.’
He showed us round the back and along a narrow corridor between the taproom and the kitchen. A flight of stairs led down to the cellars and, lighting a candle, the landlord led us to a dismal little room that was tucked away beneath them, small and windowless, with a bare wooden floor. This was where Sally, exhausted after her long day’s labours, would have taken herself, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, covered by a single blanket. Two objects lay in the middle of this makeshift bed. One was a knife, the other a doll which she must have rescued from some rubbish tip. Looking at its broken limbs and stark white face, I could not help but think of her brother who had been discarded just as casually. A chair and a small table with a candle stood in one corner. It would not have taken the police long to search the place for, the doll and the knife aside, Sally had no possessions, nothing she could call her own beyond her name.
Holmes swept his eyes across the room. ‘Why the knife?’ he murmured.
‘To protect herself,’ I suggested.
‘The weapon that she used to protect herself she carried with her, as you know better than anyone. She will have taken that with her. This second knife is almost blunt.’
‘And stolen from the kitchen!’ Hardcastle murmured.
‘The candle, I think, is of interest.’ It was the unlit candle on the table to which Holmes referred. He picked it up, then crouched down and began to shuffle along the floor. It took me a moment to realise that he was following a trail of melted wax droplets which were almost invisible to the human eye. He, of course, had seen them at once. They led him to the corner furthest away from the bed ‘She carried it to this far corner … again to what purpose? Unless … The knife please, Watson.’ I handed it to him and he pressed the blade into one of the cracks between the wooden floorboards. One of the boards was loose and he used the knife to prise it up, then reached inside and withdrew a bunched-up handkerchief. ‘If you could be so kind, Mr Hardcastle …’
The landlord brought over his own, lit candle. Holmes unfolded the handkerchief, and by the light of the flickering flame, we saw that there were several coins inside – three farthings, two florins, a crown, a gold sovereign and five shillings. For two destitute children, it was a veritable treasure trove, but to which of them had the money belonged?
‘This is Ross’s,’ Holmes said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘The sovereign, I gave him.’
‘My dear Holmes! How can you be sure it’s the same sovereign?’
Holmes held it to the light. ‘The date is the same. But look also at the design. Saint George rides his horse but has a gash across his leg. I noticed it as I handed it over. This is part of the guinea that Ross earned for his work with the Irregulars. But what of the rest of it?’
‘He got it from his uncle,’ Hardcastle muttered. Holmes turned to him. ‘When he came here and asked to stay the night, he said he could pay for the room. I laughed at him and he said that he had been given money by his uncle but I didn’t believe him and said he could work in the yard instead. If I’d known the boy had as much as this, I’d have offered him decent lodgings upstairs.’
‘The thing takes shape. It becomes coherent. The boy decides to use the information that he has gleaned from his presence at Mrs Oldmore’s Hotel. He goes out once, presents himself and makes his demands. He is invited to a meeting … a certain place at a certain time. It is at this meeting that he will be killed. But he has at least taken some precautions, leaving all his wealth behind with his sister. She hides it beneath the floorboards. How wretched she must now be, knowing that she was unable to retrieve it when you and I chased her away, Watson. One last question for you, Mr Hardcastle, and then we will be on our way. Did Sally ever mention the House of Silk to you?’
‘The House of Silk? No, Mr Holmes. I have never heard of it. What am I to do with these coins?’
‘Keep them. The girl has lost her brother. She has lost everything. Perhaps one day she will come back to you, needing h
elp, and at the very least you will be able to give them back.’
From The Bag of Nails we followed the sweep of the Thames, heading back towards Bermondsey. I wondered aloud if Holmes intended to revisit the hotel. ‘Not the hotel, Watson,’ he said. ‘But nearby. We must find the source of the boy’s wealth. It may prove central to the reason he was killed.’
‘He got it from his uncle,’ I said. ‘But if his parents are dead, how are we to find any other of his relatives?’
Holmes laughed. ‘You surprise me, Watson. Are you really so unfamiliar with the language of at least half the population in London? Every week thousands of labourers and itinerant workers visit their uncles, by which they mean the pawnbrokers. That is where Ross received his ill-gotten gains. The only question is – what did he sell to receive his florins and shillings?’
‘And where did he sell it?’ I added. ‘There must be hundreds of pawnbrokers in this part of London alone.’
‘That is certainly the case. On the other hand, you will recall that Wiggins followed our mysterious assailant from a pawnbroker in Bridge Lane to the hotel and mentioned that Ross was frequently in and out of it himself. Perhaps that is where his “uncle” is to be found.’
What a place of broken promises and lost hopes the pawnbroker proved to be! Every class, every profession, every walk of life was represented in its grubby windows, the detritus of so many lives pinned like butterflies behind the glass. Overhead, a wooden sign with three red balls on a blue background hung on rusty chains, refusing to swing in the breeze as if to assert that nothing here would ever move, that once the owners had lost their possessions, they would never see them again. ‘Money advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel and every description of property’ read the notice below and so it was, for even Aladdin in his cave would have been unlikely to stumble upon such a treasure trove. Garnet brooches and silver watches, china cups and vases, pen holders, teaspoons and books, fought for space on the shelves with such disparate objects as a clockwork soldier and a stuffed jay. Linen squares from tiny handkerchiefs to tableclothes and brightly embroidered bedcovers dangled at the sides. A whole army of chessmen stood guard over a battlefield of rings and bracelets laid out on green baize. What workman had sacrificed his chisels and saws for beer and sausages at the weekend? What little girl managed without her Sunday dress while her parents struggled to find food for the table? The window was not just a display of human degradation. It was a celebration. And it was here, perhaps, that Ross had come.