The House Of Silk (18 page)

‘Take him up, officer! I saw him shoot the girl. I saw it with my own eyes.’ He had a thick Scottish accent that sounded almost incongruous, as if this were all a play and he a member of the audience who had, unbidden, wandered on to the stage. ‘God help her, the poor creature. He killed her in cold blood.’

‘Who are you?’ the constable demanded.

‘My name is Thomas Ackland. I was on my way home. I saw exactly what happened.’

I could not stand on the sidelines any longer but pushed my way forward and knelt beside my stricken friend. ‘Holmes!’ I cried. ‘Holmes, can you hear me? For God’s sake tell me what has happened.’

But Holmes was still incapable of reply and now I found the constable examining me. ‘You know this man?’ he demanded.

‘Indeed I do. He is Sherlock Holmes.’

‘And you?’

‘My name is John Watson and I am a doctor. Officer, you must allow me to attend upon my friend. However black and white the facts may appear, I can assure you that he is innocent of any crime.’

‘That is not true. I saw him shoot the girl. I saw the bullet fired by his own hand.’ Ackland took a step forward. ‘I, too, am a doctor,’ he continued. ‘And I can tell you at once that this man is under the influence of opium. It is evident from his eyes and from his breath and you need seek no further motive for this vile and senseless crime.’

Was he right? Holmes lay there, unable to speak. He was certainly in the grip of some sort of narcotic and, given that he had been in Creer’s Place for the past hour, it was absurd to suggest that anything was responsible other than the drug that the doctor had named. And yet there was something about the diagnosis that puzzled me. I looked closely at Holmes’s eyes and although I would have had to agree that the pupils were dilated, they lacked the ugly pinpricks of light which I would have expected to find. I felt his pulse and found it almost too sluggish, suggesting that he had just been aroused from a deep sleep rather than involved in the strenuous activity of first chasing and then shooting down his victim. And since when had opium ever caused an event such as this? Its effects might include euphoria, total relaxation, freedom from physical pain. But never had I heard of a user being driven to acts of violence, and even had Holmes been in the grip of the most profound paranoia, what possible motive could his muddled consciousness have come up with for killing the one girl he had been most eager to find and protect? How, for that matter, had she come to be here? Finally, I doubted that Holmes would have been able to shoot with any accuracy had he been under the influence of opium. He would have had difficulty even holding the gun steady. I set this all out here as though I was able to deliberate at length on the evidence in front of me, and yet, in actual fact, it was the work of but a second born out of my many years in the medical profession and my intimate knowledge of the man accused.

‘Did you accompany this person here tonight?’ the constable asked me.

‘Yes. But we were briefly apart. I was at The Rose and Crown.’

‘And he?’

‘He …’ I stopped myself. The one thing I could not do was reveal where Holmes had been. ‘My friend is a celebrated detective and he was in pursuit of a case. You will discover that he is well known to Scotland Yard. Call for Inspector Lestrade who will vouch for him. As bad as this looks, there must be another explanation.’

‘There is no other explanation,’ Dr Ackland interjected. ‘He came staggering from round that corner. The girl was in the street, begging. He took out a gun and he shot her.’

‘There is blood on his clothing,’ the constable agreed, although he seemed to speak with a degree of reluctance. ‘He was evidently close to her when she was killed. And when I arrived in this courtyard, there was nobody else in sight.’

‘Did you see the shot fired?’ I asked.

‘No. But I arrived moments later. And nobody ran from the scene.’

‘He did it!’ somebody shouted in the crowd and this was followed by a murmur of assent, taken up by the children who were all delighted to find themselves in the front row for this spectacle.

‘Holmes!’ I cried, kneeling beside him and attempting to support his head in my hands. ‘Can you tell me what happened here?’

Holmes made no response and a moment later, I became aware of another man who had approached silently and was now standing over me, next to the Scottish doctor. ‘Please will you get to your feet,’ he demanded, in a voice as cold as the night itself.

‘This man is my friend—’ I began.

‘And this is the scene of a crime in which you have no business to interfere. Stand up and move back. Thank you. Now, if anyone here saw anything, give your name and place of address to the officer. Otherwise, return to your homes. You children, get out of here before I put the whole lot of you under arrest. Officer? What’s your name? Perkins! Are you in charge here?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘This is your beat?’

‘It is, sir.’

‘Well, you seem to have done reasonably good work so far. Can you tell me what you saw and what you know? Try to keep it concise. It’s a damned cold night and the sooner we have it wrapped up, the sooner we can be in bed.’ He stood in silence as the constable gave his version of events which added up to little more than I already knew. He nodded. ‘Very well, Constable Perkins. Look after these people. Write down the details in your notebook. I’ll take charge of this now.’

I have not yet described this new arrival and find it difficult to do so even now for he was quite simply one of the most reptilian men I have ever encountered, with eyes too small for his face, thin lips and skin so smooth as to be almost featureless. His most prominent feature was a thick mane of hair of a most unnatural white, which is to say that it really was completely colourless and might never had any colour at all. It was not as if he was old – he could not have been more than thirty or thirty-five. The hair was in complete contrast to his wardrobe, which consisted of black overcoat, black gloves and black scarf. Although he was not a large man, he had a certain presence, even an arrogance, which I had already witnessed in the way he had taken command of the situation. He spoke softly, but his voice had an edge that left you in no doubt that he was used to being obeyed. But it was his mercurial quality that most unnerved me, his refusal to connect emotionally with anyone at all. That was what put me in mind of the snake. From the moment I had first spoken to him, I had felt him slithering around me. He was the sort of person who looked through you or behind you but who would never look
at
you. I had never met anyone quite so in command of themselves, living in a world in which the rest of us could be only trespassers, forbidden to come near.

‘So your name is Dr Watson?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘And this is Sherlock Holmes! Well, I rather doubt we’ll be reading of this in one of your famous chronicles, will we, unless it comes under the heading of
The Adventure of the Psychotic Opium Addict
. Your colleague was at Creer’s Place tonight?’

‘He was pursuing an investigation.’

‘Pursuing it with a pipe and a needle it would seem. A rather unorthodox method of detection, I would have said. Well, you can leave, Dr Watson. There is nothing more you can do tonight. A pretty business we have here! This girl can’t be more than sixteen or seventeen years old.’

‘Her name is Sally Dixon. She was working at a public house called The Bag of Nails in Shoreditch.’

‘She was known to her assailant?’

‘Mr Holmes was not her assailant!’

‘So you would have us think. Unfortunately, there are witnesses who have a different point of view.’ He glanced at the Scottish man. ‘You are a doctor?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And you saw what happened here tonight?’

‘I already told the constable, sir. The girl was begging in the street. This man came from that building over there. I thought he was drunk or out of his mind. He followed the girl into this square and he killed her with a revolver. It’s as plain as that.’

‘In your opinion, is Mr Holmes well enough to travel with me to Holborn police station?’

‘He cannot walk. But there is no reason why he should not travel in a cab.’

‘There is one on the way.’ The white-haired man, who had still not given me his name, walked slowly over to Holmes who still lay on the ground, a little recovered, fighting to regain his composure. ‘Can you hear me, Mr Holmes?’

‘Yes.’ It was the first word he had spoken.

‘My name is Inspector Harriman. I am arresting you for the murder of this young woman, Sally Dixon. You are not obliged to say anything unless you desire to do so, but whatever you do say I shall take down in writing and it may be used as evidence against you hereafter. Do you understand?’

‘This is monstrous!’ I cried. ‘I am telling you that Sherlock Holmes had nothing whatsoever to do with this crime. Your witness is lying. This is some conspiracy—’

‘If you do not wish to find yourself arrested for obstruction and also quite possibly sued for slander, then I suggest you try to find the wisdom to remain silent. You will have your chance to speak when this comes to court. In the meantime, I will ask you again to step aside and leave me to get on with my business.’

‘Do you have no idea who this is and to what extent the police force in this city and, indeed, in this country, are indebted to him?’

‘I know very well who he is and I cannot say that it makes any difference to the situation as I find it. We have a dead girl. The murder weapon is in his hand. We have a witness. I think that’s enough to be getting on with. It is almost twelve and I cannot be squabbling with you all night. If you have any reason to complain about my behaviour, you can do so in the morning. I hear a cab approaching. Let us get this man into a cell and this poor little mite to the morgue.’

There was nothing more I could do except stand and watch as Constable Perkins returned and, with the help of the doctor, lifted Holmes to his feet and dragged him away. The gun that he had been carrying was wrapped in cloth and taken with him. At the last minute, as he was being helped into the cab, his head turned and our eyes met and I was relieved at least to see that some of the life had returned to them and that whatever drug he had taken – or been given – must be wearing off. More policemen had arrived and I saw Sally covered with a blanket and carried away on a stretcher. Dr Ackland shook hands with Harriman, handed him a business card, and walked off. Before I knew it, I was on my own – and in a hostile, insalubrious part of London. I suddenly remembered that I still had the revolver that Holmes had given me, in my coat pocket. My hand closed on it and the mad thought came to me that perhaps I should have used it to rescue Holmes, seizing hold of him and carrying him with me whilst keeping Harriman and the crowd at bay. But such an attempt would have helped neither of us. There were other ways to fight back and, with that in mind and cold steel in my hand, I turned away and hurriedly made for home.

I had a visitor, early the next morning. It was the one man I most wanted to see – Inspector Lestrade. As he came striding in, interrupting me at my breakfast, my first thought was that he brought news that Holmes had already been released and would be arriving shortly, too. One look at his face, however, was enough to dash my hopes. He was grim and unsmiling and, from the look of him, had either risen very early or perhaps had not slept at all. Without asking permission, he sat down so heavily at the table that I might have wondered if he would ever find the strength to rise.

‘Will you have some breakfast, Inspector?’ I ventured.

‘That would be most kind of you, Dr Watson. I am certainly in need of something to restore me. This business! Frankly, it beggars belief. Sherlock Holmes, for goodness sake! Have these people forgotten how much of a good turn we owe him at Scotland Yard? That they should think him guilty! And yet, it doesn’t look good, Dr Watson. It doesn’t look good.’

I poured him a cup of tea, filling the cup which Mrs Hudson had set out for Holmes – she was, of course, unaware of what had taken place the night before. Lestrade sipped noisily. ‘Where is Holmes?’ I asked.

‘They held him overnight at Bow Street.’

‘Have you seen him?’

‘They wouldn’t let me! As soon as I heard what had happened last night, I went straight round. But this man, Harriman, he’s a queer one and no mistake. Most of us at Scotland Yard, those of us of the same rank, we muddle along together as best we can. But not him. Harriman has always kept his own council. He has no friends and no family that I know of. He does a good job, I’ll give him that, but although we’ve passed in the corridor, I’ve never spoken more than a few words to him and he’s never answered back. As it happens, I saw him briefly this morning and asked to visit Mr Holmes, thinking it was the very least I could do, but he just walked right past me. A little common courtesy wouldn’t have hurt, but that’s the man we’re up against. He’s with Holmes now, interviewing him. I’d give my eye teeth to be in the room with them, for that would be a battle of wits if ever there was one. As far as I can tell, Harriman’s already made up his mind, but of course it’s all nonsense and so I’ve come here, hoping you can shed some light on this matter. You were there last night?’

‘I was in Bluegate Fields.’

‘And is it true that Mr Holmes visited an opium den?’

‘He went there, but not to indulge in that hateful practice.’

‘No?’ Lestrade’s eyes travelled to the mantelpiece and to the morocco case that contained a hypodermic syringe. I wondered how he had learned of Holmes’s occasional habit.

‘You know Holmes too well to think otherwise,’ I chided him. ‘He is still investigating the deaths of the man in the flat cap and the child, Ross. That was what took him to East London.’

Lestrade took out his notebook and opened it. ‘I think you had better tell me what progress you and Mr Holmes had made, Dr Watson. If I am going to fight on his behalf, and it may well be that we have a battle royal on our hands, then the more I know the better. I ask you to leave nothing out.’

It was strange, really, for Holmes had always thought himself in competition with the police and would, in normal circumstances, have told them none of the details of his investigation. On this occasion, though, I had no choice but to acquaint Lestrade with everything that had happened both before and after the child had been killed, starting with our visit to Chorley Grange School for Boys, which had led us to Sally Dixon and The Bag of Nails. I told him of her attack on me, our discovery of the stolen pocket watch, our unhelpful interview with Lord Ravenshaw, and Holmes’s decision to place an advertisement in the evening papers. Finally, I described the visit of the man who called himself Henderson and how he had led us to Creer’s Place.