The House Of Silk (17 page)

‘Does this man, Creer, ever leave his office?’

‘Frequently. The den is cramped and smoke-filled. He goes out to take the air.’

‘Then you may see me tonight. And if all goes well and I find what I am looking for, I will double your reward.’

‘Do not say you know me. Do not acknowledge my presence. Do not expect any further assistance if things go awry.’

‘I understand.’

‘Then good luck to you, Mr Holmes. I wish you success – for my sake, not for yours.’

We waited until Henderson had left, then Holmes turned to me with a gleam in his eyes. ‘An opium den! And one that does business with the House of Silk. What do you think, Watson?’

‘I don’t like the sound of it one bit, Holmes. I think you should stay well away.’

‘Pshaw! I think I can look after myself.’ Holmes strode over to his desk, opened a drawer and took out a pistol. ‘I’ll go armed.’

‘Then I shall go with you.’

‘My dear Watson, I cannot possibly allow it. As much as I am grateful to you for your consideration, I have to say that the two of us together would look anything but the sort of customers who might be seeking out an East London opium den on a Thursday night.’

‘Nonetheless, Holmes, I insist. I will remain outside, if you wish. We must surely be able to find somewhere nearby. Then, if you are in need of assistance, a single shot will bring me to the scene. Creer may have other thugs working for him. And can we trust Henderson not to betray you?’

‘You have a point. Very well. Where is your revolver?’

‘I did not bring it with me.’

‘No matter. I have another.’ Holmes smiled and I saw the relish in his face. ‘Tonight we shall pay Creer’s Place a visit and we shall see what we shall see.’

There was another fog that night, the worst one of the month so far. I would have urged Holmes to postpone his visit to Bluegate Fields if I had thought it would do any good but I could see from his pale and hawk-like face that he would not be deterred from the course of action to which he had committed himself. Although he had not said as much, I knew that it was the death of the child, Ross, that compelled him. For as long as he held himself even partly responsible for what had occurred, he would not rest and all thoughts of his own safety he would willingly set aside.

And yet how oppressed I felt as the cab dropped us beside an alleyway near the Limehouse Basin. The fog, thick and yellow, was unfolding through the streets, deadening every sound. Vile, it seemed, like some evil animal snuffling through the darkness in search of its prey and as we made our way forward it was as if we were delivering ourselves into its very jaws. We passed through the alley, trapped between red brick walls dripping with moisture and rising up so high that, but for the faint silvering of the moon, they might have completely blotted out the sky. At first, our own footsteps were the only sounds we heard, but then the passage widened and the whinny of a horse, the soft rumble of a steam engine, the rippling of water and the shrill cry of a sleepless baby echoed out from different directions, each in its own way defining the obscurity all around. We were by a canal. A rat, or some other creature, scuttled in front of us and slipped over the edge of the footpath, falling into the black water with a splash. A dog barked. We walked past a barge, tied to one side, chinks of light just visible behind the curtained windows, smoke billowing out of its chimney. Beyond was a dry dock, a tangle of ships barely visible, hanging like prehistoric skeletons, their ropes and rigging trailing down, awaiting repairs. We turned a corner and all of this was swallowed up immediately by the fog which fell like a curtain behind us, so that when I turned round it was as if I had just emerged from nowhere. Ahead, too, there was nothing, and if we had been about to step off the edge of the world, we would have been no wiser. But then we heard the jangle of a piano, one finger picking out a tune. A woman suddenly loomed up in front of us and I glimpsed a wrinkled face, hideously painted, a gaudy hat and a feathered scarf. I caught her scent which reminded me of flowers dying in a vase. She laughed briefly and then was gone. And finally, in front of us, I saw lights; the windows of a public house. This was from where the music was coming.

It was called The Rose and Crown. We could only read the name when we were standing directly beneath its sign. It was a strange little place, a construction of bricks held together by a patchwork of wooden planks but which still tottered awkwardly as if about to collapse. None of the windows was quite straight. The door was so low that we would have to bend down to go in.

‘We are here, Watson,’ Holmes whispered and I could see his breath frosting in front of his lips. He pointed. ‘There is Milward Street, and I would imagine that to be Creer’s Place. You see the red light in the doorway.’

‘Holmes, I beg of you one last time to let me accompany you.’

‘No, no. It is better for one of us to remain on the outside for if it turns out that I am expected, you will be in the stronger position to come to my aid.’

‘You think Henderson was lying to you?’

‘His story struck me as in every way improbable.’

‘Then, for heaven’s sake, Holmes—’

‘I cannot be entirely certain, Watson, not without entering. It is just possible that Henderson spoke the truth. But if this is a trap, we will spring it and see where it takes us.’ I opened my mouth to protest but he continued: ‘We have touched something very deep, old friend. This is a business of the greatest singularity and we will not get to the bottom of it if we refuse to take risks. Wait for me one hour. I would suggest you avail yourself of what comfort this public house has to offer. If I have not reappeared by then, you must come after me but take the greatest care. And if you hear gunfire, then come at once.’

‘Whatever you say, Holmes.’

But it was still with the gravest misgivings that I watched him cross the road, momentarily disappearing from sight as the fog and the darkness embraced him. He emerged on the other side, standing in the glow of the red light, framed by the doorway. In the far distance, I heard a clock strike the hour, the bell sounding eleven times. Before the first chime had faded, Holmes had gone.

Even in my greatcoat it was too cold to stand outside for an hour, and I felt ill at ease, out in the street in the middle of the night, particularly in a neighbourhood whose inhabitants were well known to be of the lowest class, vicious, and semi-criminal. I pushed open the door of The Rose and Crown and found myself in a single room divided into two halves by a narrow bar punctuated by ale taps with handles of painted porcelain and two shelves with an array of bottles. To my surprise, between fifteen and twenty people had braved the weather to gather in this small space. They were huddled together at tables, playing cards, drinking and smoking. The air was thick with cigarette and pipe smoke and smelled strongly also of the burning peat which came from a battered cast-iron stove in the corner. Apart from a few candles, this was the only source of light in the room but it seemed to be having almost the opposite effect for, looking at the red glow behind the thick, glass window, it was almost as if the fire was somehow sucking the light into itself, consuming it, and then spewing black smoke and ashes up the chimney and into the night. A worn-out piano stood next to the door and there was a woman sitting in front of it, idly prodding the keys. This was the music I had heard outside.

I crossed to the bar where an old, grizzled man with cataracts on his eyes poured me a glass of ale for a couple of pence and I stood there, not drinking, ignoring my own worst imaginings, trying not to think about Holmes. The majority of the men around me were sailors and dockworkers and many of them were foreign – Spanish and Maltese. None of them took any notice of me, and for that I was glad. In fact, they barely spoke to each other, and the only real sound in the room was that made by the card players. A clock on the wall showed the passing hour and it seemed to me that the minute hand was deliberately dragging itself, ignoring the laws of time. I had often waited, with and without Holmes, for a villain to show himself, whether it was on the moors near Baskerville Hall, on the banks of the Thames or in the gardens of many a suburban home. But I will never forget the fifty-minute vigil that I spent in that little room with the slap, slap, slap of the cards against the table, the out-of-tune notes picked out on the piano, the dark faces gazing into their glasses as if all the answers to the mystery of life might there be found.

Fifty minutes exactly, for it was at ten to midnight that the still of the night was suddenly shattered by two gunshots and, almost immediately, by the shrill cry of a police whistle and the sound of voices shouting out in alarm. I was instantly out in the street, bursting through the doors, sick with myself and angry that I had ever let Holmes talk me into this dangerous scheme. That he had fired the shots himself I never doubted. But had he fired them as a warning, for me, or was he in some sort of peril, forced to defend himself? The fog had lifted slightly and I hurled myself across the street and up to the entrance of Creer’s Place. I turned the handle. The door was unlocked. Drawing my own weapon from my pocket, I rushed in.

The dry, burning smell of opium greeted my nostrils and at once brought irritation to my eyes and a sharp, stabbing pain to my head, to the extent that I was unwilling to breathe for fear of falling under the spell of the drug myself. I was standing in a dank, gloomy room that had been decorated in the Chinese style with patterned rugs, red paper lampshades and silk hangings on the walls, just as Henderson had described. Of the man himself there was no sign. Four men lay stretched out on mattresses with their japan trays and opium lamps on low tables nearby. Three of them were unconscious and could indeed have been corpses. The last was resting his chin on one hand, gazing at me with unfocused eyes. One mattress was empty.

A man came rushing towards me and I knew that this must be Creer himself. He was completely bald, his skin paper-white and stretched so tightly over his bones that, with his black, deep-set eyes he seemed to have a dead man’s skull instead of a living head. I could see that he was about to speak, to challenge me, but then he saw my revolver and fell back.

‘Where is he?’ I demanded.

‘Who?’

‘You know who I mean!’

My eyes travelled past him to an open doorway at the far end of the room and a corridor, lit by a gas lamp, beyond. Ignoring Creer, anxious to be out of this dreadful place before the fumes overcame me, I pushed my way forward. One of the wretches lying on the mattresses called out to me and reached out with a begging hand, but I ignored him. There was another door at the far end of the corridor and, as Holmes could not have possibly left by the front, he must surely have come this way. I forced it open and felt the rush of cold air. I was at the back of the house. I heard more shouting, the clatter of a horse and carriage, the blast of a police whistle. I knew already that we had been tricked, that everything had gone wrong. But still I had no idea what to expect. Where was Holmes? Had he been hurt?

I ran down a narrow street, through an archway, around a corner and into a courtyard. A small crowd had gathered here. Where could they all have come from at this time of the night? I saw a man in evening dress, a police constable, two others. They were all staring at a tableau that presented itself in front of them, none of them daring to move forward and take charge. I pushed my way through them. And never will I forget what I then saw.

There were two figures. One was a young girl whom I recognised at once – and with good cause, for she had tried to kill me only a few days before. It was Sally Dixon, the older sister of Ross, who had been working at The Bag of Nails. She had been shot twice, in the chest and in the head. She was lying on the cobblestones in a pool of liquid which showed black in the darkness but which I knew to be blood. I also knew the man who lay unconscious in front of her, one hand stretched out, still holding the gun that had shot her.

It was Sherlock Holmes.

I have never forgotten that night and its consequences.

Sitting here on my own, twenty-five years later, I still have every detail of it printed on my mind and although I sometimes have to strain through the distorting lens of time to recall the features of friends and foemen alike, I have only to blink and there they all are: Harriman, Creer, Ackland and even the constable … what was his name? Perkins! The fact is that I had many adventures with Sherlock Holmes and frequently saw him in dire straits. There were times when I thought him dead. Only a week before, indeed, I had observed him helpless and delirious, supposedly the victim of a coolie disease from Sumatra. Then there was that time at Poldhu Bay in Cornwall where, had I not dragged him from the room, he would certainly have succumbed to madness and self-destruction. I recall my vigil with him in Surrey when a deadly swamp adder came slithering out of the darkness. And how could I complete this brief list without reminding myself of the utter despair, the sense of emptiness that I felt when I returned, alone, from the Reichenbach Falls? And yet, all of these pale in comparison with that night in Bluegate Fields. Poor Holmes. I see him now, recovering consciousness to find himself surrounded, under arrest and quite unable to explain to himself or to anyone else what had just taken place. It was he who had chosen, willingly, to walk into a trap. This was the unhappy result.

A constable had arrived. I did not know from where. He was young and nervous but all in all he went about his business with commendable efficiency. First, he checked that the girl was dead, then turned his attention to my friend. Holmes looked dreadful. His skin was as white as paper and although his eyes were open he seemed unable to see clearly … he certainly didn’t recognise me. Matters were not helped by the crowd, and once again I asked myself who they were and how they could possibly have chosen such a night to congregate here. There were two women, similar to the dreadful old crone who had passed us by the canal, and with them two sailors, leaning against each other and reeking of ale. A negro stared with wide eyes. A couple of my Maltese drinking companions from The Rose and Crown stood next to him. And even a few children had appeared, ragged and barefoot, watching the spectacle as if it were being played out for their benefit. As I took this all in, a tall man, red-faced and elegantly dressed, called out and gesticulated with his stick.