The House Of Silk (5 page)

‘He is trying to terrorise me.’

‘And succeeding.’

‘Indeed.’ Carstairs bowed his head. ‘Are you saying that you cannot help me, Mr Holmes?’

‘At this juncture, I do not see that there is a great deal I can do. Whoever he may be, your unwanted visitor has given us no clue as to how we may find him. If, on the other hand, he should reappear, then I will be pleased to give you what assistance I can. But there is one last thing I
can
tell you, Mr Carstairs. You can enjoy your opera in a tranquil state of mind. I do not believe he intends to do you harm.’

But Holmes was wrong. At least, that was how it appeared the very next day. For it was then that the man in the flat cap struck again.

The telegram arrived the next morning, while we were sitting together at breakfast.

O’
DONAGHUE
CAME
AGAIN
LAST
NIGHT
. MY
SAFE
BROKEN
INTO
AND
POLICE
NOW
SUMMONED
.
CAN
YOU
COME?

It was signed, Edmund Carstairs.

‘So what do you make of that, Watson?’ Holmes asked, tossing the paper down onto the table.

‘He has returned sooner, perhaps, than you had thought,’ I said.

‘Not at all. I was anticipating something very much like this. From the start, it occurred to me that the so-called man in the flat cap was more interested in Ridgeway Hall than its owner.’

‘You expected a burglary?’ I stammered. ‘But, Holmes, why did you not give Mr Carstairs a warning? At the very least you might have suggested the possibility.’

‘You heard what I said, Watson. With no further evidence, there was nothing I could hope to achieve. But now our unwanted visitor has most generously decided to assist us. He has quite probably forced a window. He will have walked across the lawn, stood in a flower bed and left muddy tracks across the carpet. From this we will learn, at the very least, his height, his weight, his profession and any peculiarities he may have in his gait. He may have been so kind as to drop some item or leave something behind. If he has taken jewellery, it will have to be disposed of. If it was money, that too may make itself known. At least now he will have laid a track that we can follow. Can I trouble you to pass the marmalade? There are plenty of trains to Wimbledon. I take it you will join me?’

‘Of course, Holmes. I would like nothing better.’

‘Excellent. I sometimes wonder how I will be able to find the energy or the will to undertake another investigation if I am not assured that the general public will be able to read every detail of it in due course.’

I had grown accustomed to such ribaldry and took it to be an indication of my friend’s good humour, so did not respond. A short while later, when Holmes had finished smoking his morning pipe, we put on our coats and left the house. The distance to Wimbledon was not great, but it was close to eleven o’clock when we arrived and I wondered if Mr Carstairs might not have given up on us altogether.

My first impression of Ridgeway Hall was that it was a perfect jewel box of a house and one well suited to a collector of fine art who would surely display many priceless things inside. Two gates, one on each side, opened from the public lane with a gravel drive, shaped like a horseshoe, sweeping round a well-manicured lawn and up to the front door. The gates were framed by ornate pilasters, each one surmounted by a stone lion with a paw raised as if warning visitors to stop and consider before deciding to enter. A low wall ran between the two. The house itself was set some distance back. It was what I would have termed a villa, built in the classic Georgian style, white and perfectly square, with elegant windows placed symmetrically on either side of the front entrance. This symmetry even extended to the trees, of which there were many fine specimens but which had been planted so that one side of the garden almost formed a mirror image of the other. And yet, at the very last moment it had all been spoiled by an Italian fountain which, though beautiful in itself, with cupids and dolphins playing in the stone and the sunlight sparkling off a thin veneer of ice, had nonetheless been positioned slightly out of kilter. It was quite impossible to see it without wishing to pick it up and carry it two or three yards to the left.

It turned out that the police had come and gone. The door was opened by a manservant, smartly dressed and grim-faced. He led us along a wide corridor with rooms leading off on both sides, the walls hung with paintings and engravings, antique mirrors and tapestries. A sculpture showing a shepherd boy leaning on his staff stood on a little table with curved legs. An elegant longcase clock, white and gold, stood at the far end, the gentle sound of its ticking echoing through the house. We were shown into the drawing room where Carstairs was sitting on a chaise longue, talking to a woman a few years younger than himself. He was wearing a black frock coat, silver-coloured waistcoast and patent leather shoes. His long hair was neatly combed back. To look at him, one might think he had just lost a hand at bridge. It was hard to believe that anything more untoward had occurred. However, he sprang to his feet the moment he saw us.

‘So! You have come! You told me yesterday that I had no reason to fear the man whom I believe to be Keelan O’Donaghue. And yet last night he broke into this house. He has taken fifty pounds and jewellery from my safe. But for the fact that my wife is a light sleeper and actually surprised him in the middle of his larceny, who knows what he might have done next?’

I turned my attention to the lady who had been sitting beside him. She was a small, very attractive person of about thirty years of age, and she impressed me at once with her bright, intelligent face and her confident demeanour. She had fair hair, drawn back and tied in a knot; a style that seemed designed to accenuate the elegance and femininity of her features. Despite the alarms of the morning I guessed that she had a quick sense of humour, for it was there in her eyes, which were a strange shade between green and blue, and her lips, which were constantly on the edge of a smile. Her cheeks were lightly freckled. She was wearing a simple dress with long sleeves, untrimmed and unbraided. A necklace of pearls hung around her neck. There was something about her that reminded me, almost at once, of my own, dear Mary. Even before she had spoken, I was sure that she would have the same disposition; a natural independence and yet a keen sense of duty to the man whom she had chosen to marry.

‘Perhaps you should begin by introducing us,’ Holmes remarked.

‘Of course. This is my wife, Catherine.’

‘And you must be Mr Sherlock Holmes. I am very grateful to you for replying so quickly to our telegram. I told Edmund to send it. I said you would come.’

‘I understand that you have had a very unsettling experience,’ Holmes said.

‘Indeed so. It is as my husband told you. I was woken up last night and saw from the clock that it was twenty past three. There was a full moon shining through the window. I thought at first that it must have been a bird or an owl that had disturbed me, but then I heard another sound, coming from inside the house, and I knew that I was wrong. I rose from my bed, drew on a dressing gown and went downstairs.’

‘It was a foolish thing to do, my dear,’ Carstairs remarked. ‘You could have been hurt.’

‘I didn’t consider myself to be in any danger. To be honest, it didn’t even occur to me that there might be a stranger in the house. I thought it might be Mr or Mrs Kirby – or even Patrick. You know I don’t completely trust that boy. Anyway, I looked briefly in the drawing room. Nothing had been disturbed. Then, for some reason, I was drawn to the study.’

‘You had no light with you?’ Holmes asked.

‘No. The moon was enough. I opened the door and there was a figure, a silhouette perched on the window sill, holding something in his hand. He saw me and the two of us froze, facing each other across the carpet. At first, I didn’t scream. I was too shocked. Then it was as if he simply fell backwards through the window, dropping down on to the grass, and at that very moment I was released from my spell. I called out and raised the alarm.’

‘We will examine the safe and the study momentarily,’ Holmes said. ‘But before we do so, Mrs Carstairs I can tell from your accent that you are American. Have you been married long?’

‘Edmund and I have been married for almost a year and a half.’

‘I should have explained to you how I met Catherine,’ Carstairs said. ‘For it is very much connected with the narrative that I related yesterday. The only reason that I chose not to do so was because I thought it had no relevance.’

‘Everything has a relevance,’ remarked Holmes. ‘I have often found that the most immaterial aspect of a case can be at the same time its most significant.’

‘We met on the
Catalonia
the very day that it left Boston,’ Catherine Carstairs said. She reached out and took her husband’s hand. ‘I was travelling alone, apart, of course, from a girl whom I had employed to be my companion. I saw Edmund as he came on board and I knew at once that something dreadful had happened. It was obvious from his face, from the fear in his eyes. We passed each other on the deck that evening. Both of us were single. And by a stroke of good fortune we found ourselves seated next to each other at dinner.’

‘I do not know how I would have lasted the crossing if it had not been for Catherine.’ Carstairs continued the tale. ‘I have always been of a nervous disposition and the loss of the paintings, the death of Cornelius Stillman, the terrible violence … it had all been too much for me. I was quite unwell, in a fever. But from the very first Catherine looked after me and I found my feelings towards her growing even as the coast of America slipped away behind me. I have to say that I have always sneered at the concept of “love at first sight”, Mr Holmes. It is something I may have read in yellow-back novels but which I have never believed. Nonetheless, that is what occurred. By the time we arrived in England, I knew that I had found the woman with whom I wished to spend the rest of my life.’

‘And what, may I ask, was the reason for your visit to England?’ Holmes asked, turning to the wife.

‘I was married briefly in Chicago, Mr Holmes. My husband worked in real estate, and although in business he was well respected in the community, and a regular churchgoer, he was never kind to me. He had a dreadful temper and there were times when I even feared for my safety. I had few friends and he did everything in his power to keep it that way. In the last months of our marriage he actually confined me to the house, afraid perhaps that I might speak out against him. But then, quite suddenly, he became ill with tuberculosis and died. Sadly, his house and much of his wealth went to his two sisters. I was left with little money, no friends and no reason to wish to stay in America. And so I left. I was coming to England for a new start.’ She glanced down and added, with a look of humility, ‘I had not expected to come across it so soon, nor to find the happiness that had for so long been missing from my life.’

‘You mentioned a travelling companion who was with you on the
Catalonia
,’ Holmes remarked.

‘I hired her in Boston. I had never met her before – and she left my employ soon after we arrived.’

Outside, in the corridor, the clock chimed the hour. Holmes sprang to his feet with a smile on his face and that sense of energy and excitement that I knew so well. ‘We must waste no further time!’ he exclaimed. ‘I wish to examine the safe and the room in which it is contained. Fifty pounds has been taken, you say. Not a very large sum of money, all things considered. Let us see what, if anything, the thief has left behind.’

But before we could make a move, another woman came into the room and I saw at once that, though part of the household, she was as different from Catherine Carstairs as could be imagined. She was plain and unsmiling, dressed in grey, with dark hair tightly bound at the back of her neck. She wore a silver cross and her hands were knotted together as if in prayer. From her dark eyes, her pale skin and the shape of her lips, I surmised that she must be related to Carstairs. She had none of his theatricality but was more like the prompter, for ever cast into the shadows, waiting for him to forget his lines.

‘What now?’ she demanded. ‘First I am disturbed in my room by police officers asking absurd questions to which I cannot possibly know the replies. And that is not enough? Are we to invite the whole world in to invade our privacy?’

‘This is Mr Sherlock Holmes, Eliza,’ Carstairs stammered. ‘I told you that I consulted with him yesterday.’

‘And much good did it do you. There was nothing he could do; that was what he told you. A fine consultation, Edmund, I am sure. We could all of us have been murdered in our beds.’

Carstairs glanced at her fondly but at the same time with exasperation. ‘This is my sister, Eliza,’ he said.

‘You reside in this house?’ Holmes asked her.

‘I am tolerated, yes,’ replied the sister. ‘I have an attic room where I keep myself to myself and everyone seems to prefer it that way. I reside here, but I am not part of this family. You might as well speak to the servants as to me.’

‘You know that’s not fair, Eliza,’ Mrs Carstairs said.

Holmes turned to Carstairs. ‘Perhaps you might tell me how many people there are in the house.’

‘Apart from myself and Catherine, Eliza does indeed occupy the top floor. We have Kirby, who is our footman and man-of-all-work. It was he who showed you in. His wife acts as our housekeeper and the two of them reside downstairs. They have a young nephew, Patrick, who came to us recently from Ireland and who acts as the kitchen boy and runs errands, and there is a scullery maid, Elsie. In addition, we have a coachman and groom but they live in the village.’

‘A large household and a busy one,’ Holmes remarked. ‘But we were about to examine the safe.’

Eliza Carstairs remained where she was. The rest of us went out of the living room, down the corridor and into Carstairs’s study, which was at the very back of the house with a view of the garden and, in the distance, an ornamental pond. This turned out to be a comfortable, well-appointed room with a desk framed by two windows, velvet curtains, a handsome fireplace and some landscapes which, from their bright colours and the almost haphazard way the paint had been applied, I knew must belong to the impressionist school of which Carstairs had spoken. The safe, a solid enough affair, was tucked away in one corner. It was still open.