The House Of Silk (3 page)

‘And the note?’ Holmes asked.

‘I have it here.’

The art dealer produced a square of paper, folded into four, and handed it to Holmes. Holmes opened it carefully. ‘My glass, if you please, Watson.’ As I handed him the magnifying glass, he turned to Carstairs. ‘There was no envelope?’

‘No.’

‘I find that of the greatest significance. But let us see …’

There were just six words written in block capitals on the page.

ST MARY’S
CHURCH
.
TOMORROW
.
MID-DAY
.

‘The paper is English,’ Holmes remarked. ‘Even if the visitor was not. You notice that he writes in capitals, Watson. What do you suggest his purpose might be?’

‘To disguise his handwriting,’ I said.

‘It is possible. Although since the man had never written to Mr Carstairs, and is perhaps unlikely to write to him again, you would have thought his handwriting would have been of no consequence. Was the message folded when it was handed to you, Mr Carstairs?’

‘No. I think not. I folded it myself later.’

‘The picture becomes clearer by the minute. This church that he refers to, St Mary’s. I assume it is in Wimbledon?’

‘It is on Hothouse Lane,’ Carstairs replied. ‘Just a few minutes’ walk from my home.’

‘This behaviour is also lacking in logic, do you not think? The man wishes to speak with you. He places a message to that effect in your hand. But he does not speak. He does not utter a word.’

‘My guess was that he wished to talk to me alone. And as it happened, my wife, Catherine, emerged from the house a few moments later. She had been standing in the dining room which looks out onto the drive and she had seen what had just occurred. “Who was that?” she asked.

‘“I have no idea,” I replied.

‘“What did he want?”

‘I showed her the note. “It’s someone wanting money,” she said. “I saw him out of the window just now – a rough-looking fellow. There were gypsies on the common last week. He must have been one of them. Edmund, you mustn’t go.”

‘“You need not concern yourself, my dear,” I replied. “I have no intention of meeting with him.”’

‘You reassured your wife,’ Holmes murmured. ‘But you went to the church at the appointed time.’

‘I did exactly that – and carried a revolver with me. He wasn’t there. The church is not well attended and it was unpleasantly cold. I paced the flagstones for an hour and then I came home. I have heard no more from him since, and I have not seen him again, but I have been unable to get him out of my mind.’

‘The man is known to you,’ Holmes said.

‘Yes, Mr Holmes. You go right to the heart of it. I do believe I know the identity of this individual, although I confess I do not quite see the reasoning that has brought you to that conclusion.’

‘It strikes me as self-evident,’ Holmes replied. ‘You have seen him only three times. He has asked for a meeting but failed to show up. Nothing that you have described would suggest that this man is any threat to you, but you began by telling us of the sense of trouble and oppression that has brought you here and would not even meet him without carrying a gun. And you still have not told us the significance of the flat cap.’

‘I know who he is. I know what he wants. I am appalled that he has followed me to England.’

‘From America?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mr Carstairs, your story is full of interest and if you have time before your opera begins, or perhaps if you will agree to forgo the overture, I think you should give us the complete history of this affair. You mentioned that you were in America a year ago. Was this when you met the man in the flat cap?’

‘I never met him. But it was on his account that I was there.’

‘Then you will not object if I fill my pipe? No? So take us back with you and tell us of your business on the other side of the Atlantic. An art dealer is not the sort of man to make enemies, I would have thought. But you seem to have done just that.’

‘Indeed so. My foeman is called Keelan O’Donaghue and I wish to Heaven that I had never heard the name.’

Holmes reached for the Persian slipper where he kept his tobacco and began to fill his pipe. Meanwhile, Edmund Carstairs drew a breath and this is the tale that he told.

‘Eighteen months ago, I was introduced to a quite extraordinary man by the name of Cornelius Stillman who was in London at the end of a lengthy European tour. His home was on the East Coast of America and he was what is termed a Boston Brahmin, which is to say that he belonged to one of their most elevated and honoured families. He had made a fortune from the Calumet and Hecla mines and had also invested in the railroads and the telephone companies. In his youth, he had apparently had ambitions to become an artist and part of the reason for his visit was to visit the museums and galleries of Paris, Florence, Rome and London.

‘Like many wealthy Americans, he was imbued with a sense of civic responsibility that did him great credit. He had purchased land in the Back Bay area of Boston and had already begun work on the construction of an art gallery which he called The Parthenon and which he planned to fill with the finest works of art, purchased on his travels. I met him at a dinner party and found him to be a huge volcano of a man, brimming with energy and enthusiasm. He was rather old-fashioned in his dress, bearded and affecting a monocle, but he proved to be remarkably well informed, fluent in French and Italian with a smattering of ancient Greek. His knowledge of art, his aesthetic sensibility, also set him apart from many of his fellow citizens. Do not think of me as unnecessarily chauvinistic, Mr Holmes. He himself told me of the many shortcomings of the cultural life to which he had become accustomed as he grew up – how great paintings had been exhibited next to freaks of nature such as mermaids and dwarves. He had seen Shakespeare performed with interludes by tightrope walkers and contortionists. Such was the way of things in Boston at the time. The Parthenon would be different, he said. It would, as its name implied, be a temple to art and to civilisation.

‘I was overjoyed when Mr Stillman agreed to come to my gallery in Albemarle Street. Mr Finch and I spent many hours in his company, taking him through our catalogue and showing him some of the purchases we had recently made in auctions around the country. The long and the short of it was that he bought from us works by Romney, Stubbs and Lawrence but also a series of four landscapes by John Constable which were quite the pride of our collection. These were views of the Lake District, painted in 1806, and unlike anything else in the artist’s canon. They had a profundity of mood and spirit that was remarkable, and Mr Stillman promised that they would be exhibited in a large and well-lit room that he would design specifically for them. We parted on excellent terms. And in view of what happened, I should add that I banked a substantial sum of money. Indeed, Mr Finch remarked that this was undoubtedly the most successful transaction of our lives.

‘It now only remained to send the works to Boston. They were carefully wrapped, placed in a crate and dispatched with the White Star Line from Liverpool to New York. By one of those twists of fate that mean nothing at the time but which will later return to haunt you, we had intended to send them directly to Boston. The
RMS
Adventurer
made that journey but we missed it by a matter of hours and so chose another vessel. Our agent, a bright young man by the name of James Devoy, met the package in New York and travelled with it on the Boston and Albany Railroad – a journey of one hundred and ninety miles.

‘But the paintings never arrived.

‘There were, in Boston at this time, a number of gangs, operating particularly in the south of the city, in Charlestown and Somersville. Many of them had fanciful names such as the Dead Rabbits and the Forty Thieves and had come originally from Ireland. It is sad to think that, having been welcomed into that great country, their return to it should have been lawlessness and violence, but such was the case and the police had been unable to restrain them or bring them to justice. One of the most active and most dangerous groups was known as the Flat Cap Gang, headed by a pair of Irish twins – Rourke and Keelan O’Donaghue, originally from Belfast. I will describe these two devils to you as best as I can, because they are central to my narrative.

‘The two of them were never seen apart. Although they were identical when they were born, Rourke was the larger of the two, square-shouldered and barrel-chested with heavy fists that he was always ready to use in a fight. It is said that he beat a man to death in a game of cards when he was barely sixteen. By contrast, his twin stood very much in his shadow, smaller and quieter. Indeed, he seldom spoke at all – there were rumours that he was unable to. Rourke was bearded, Keelan clean-shaven. Both wore flat caps and it was this that gave the gang its name. It was also widely believed that they carried each other’s initials, tattooed on their arms, and that in every aspect of their lives they were inseparable.

‘Of the other gang members, their names tell you perhaps as much as you would wish to know about them. There was Frank “Mad Dog” Kelly and Patrick “Razors” Maclean. Another was known as “The Ghost” and was feared as much as any supernatural being. They were involved in every conceivable form of street crime, robberies, burglaries and protectionism. And yet, at the same time, they were held in high regard by many of the poorer inhabitants of Boston who seemed unable to recognise them as the foul pestilence that they undoubtedly were to the community. They were the underdogs, waging war on an uncaring system. I need hardly point out to you that twins have appeared in mythology since the very dawn of civilisation. There are Romulus and Remus, Apollo and Artemis and Castor and Pollux, for ever immortalised as Gemini in the night sky. Something of this attached itself to the O’Donaghues. There was a belief that they would never be caught, that they could get away with anything.

‘I knew nothing about the Flat Cap Gang – I had never even heard of them – when I sent off the paintings at Liverpool but somehow, at exactly the same time, they were tipped off that a large amount of currency was about to be transferred from the American Bank Note Company in New York to the Massachusetts First National Bank in Boston a few days hence. The sum in question was said to be one hundred thousand dollars and it was travelling on the Boston and Albany Railroad. Some say that Rourke was the brains behind their operation. Others believe that Keelan was the more natural mastermind of the two. In any event, between them they arrived at the idea of holding up the train before it could reach the city and making off with the cash.

‘Train robberies were still prevalent in the western frontiers of America, in California and Arizona, but for such a thing to take place on the more developed eastern seaboard was almost inconceivable and that is why the train left the Grand Central Terminal in New York with only one armed guard stationed in the mail car. The banknotes were contained in a safe. And by some wretched chance, the paintings were still in their crate, travelling in the same compartment. Our agent, James Devoy, was travelling in second class. He was always assiduous in his duties and had taken a seat as close to the mail car as possible.

‘The Flat Cap Gang had chosen an area just outside Pittsfield for the attempted raid. Here, the track climbed steeply upwards before crossing the Connecticut River. There was a tunnel that ran for two thousand feet and, according to railway regulations, the engineer was obliged to test his brakes at the exit. The train was therefore travelling very slowly as it emerged and it was a simple matter for Rourke and Keelan O’Donaghue to jump down onto the roof of one of the wagons. From here, they climbed over the tender and, to the astonishment of the driver and his brakeman, they suddenly appeared in the engine cab with guns drawn.

‘They ordered the train to come to a halt in a forest clearing. They were surrounded by white pine trees that soared up all around, forming a natural screen behind which they might commit their crime. Kelly, Maclean and all the other members of the gang were waiting with horses – and with dynamite which they had stolen from a construction site. All of them were armed. The train drew in and Rourke struck the driver with the side of his revolver, concussing him. Keelan, who had not uttered a word, produced some rope and tied the brakeman to a metal stanchion. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang had boarded the train. Ordering the passengers to remain seated, they approached the mail car and began to set charges around the door.

‘James Devoy had seen what was happening and was in despair of the consequences. He must have guessed that the robbers were here for reasons other than the Constables. After all, very few people knew of their existence, and even if they’d had the wit or the education to recognise the work of an old master, there would have been no one to whom the paintings could be sold. While the other passengers cowered all around him, Devoy left his seat and climbed down, meaning to plead with the gang. At least, I assume that was his intention. Before he could say a word, Rourke O’Donaghue turned on him and gunned him down. Devoy was shot three times in the chest and died in a pool of his own blood.

‘Inside the mail car, the security guard had heard the shots and I can only imagine the terror he must have felt as he heard the gang members operating outside. Would he have unlocked the door if they had demanded it? We will never know. A moment later, a huge explosion rent the air and the entire wall of the carriage was blown apart. The guard was killed instantly. The safe with the money was exposed.

‘A second, smaller charge sufficed to open it and now the band discovered that they had been misinformed. Only two thousand dollars had been sent to the Massachusetts First National Bank, a fortune perhaps to these vagabonds, but immeasurably less than they had hoped for and expected. Even so, they snatched up the notes with whoops and cries of exaltation, not caring that they had left two men dead behind them and unaware that their explosives had utterly destroyed four canvases which alone were worth twenty times what they had taken. These, and the other works, were and are an incalculable loss to British culture. Even now I have to remind myself that a young and dutiful man died that day, but I would be lying to you if I did not say that, shameful to admit, I mourn the loss of those paintings just as much.