'No? I would say you were brought up in a wealthy family and were well educated. You might have been a successful pianist for such was your ambition. Your downfall was due to an addiction, probably gambling, quite possibly dice. You were in prison earlier this year for receiving stolen goods and were considered troublesome by the warders. You served a sentence of at least three months but were released in October and since then you have done brisk business.'

For the first time, Johnson gave Holmes his full attention. 'Who told you all this?'

'I did not need to be told, Mr Johnson. It is all painfully apparent. And now, if you please, I must ask you again. What did Ross bring you?'

Johnson considered, then nodded slowly. 'I met this boy, Ross, two months ago,' he said. 'He was newly arrived in London, living up in King's Cross, and was brought here by a couple of other street boys. I remember very little about him, except that he seemed well fed and better dressed than the others and that he carried with him a gentleman's pocket watch, stolen I have no doubt. He came in a few more times after that, but he never brought in anything as good again.' He went over to a cabinet, rummaged about and produced a watch on a chain, set in a gold casing. 'This is the watch, and I gave the boy just five shillings for it although it's worth at least ten pounds. You can have it for what I paid.'

'And in return?'

'You must tell me how you know so much about me. You are a detective, I know, but I will not believe you can have plucked so much out of the air on the basis of this one brief meeting.'

'It is a matter of such simplicity that if I explain it to you, you will see you have made a bad bargain.'

'But if you don't, I'll never sleep.'

'Very well, Mr Johnson. The fact of your education is obvious from the manner of your speech. I also note the copy of Flaubert's letters to George Sand, untranslated, which you were reading as we came in. It is a wealthy family that gives a child a solid grounding in French. You also practised long hours at the piano. The fingers of a pianist are easily recognised. That you should find yourself working in this place suggests some catastrophe in your life and the rapid loss of your wealth and position. There are not so many ways that could have happened; alcohol, drugs, a poor business speculation perhaps. But you speak of odds and refer to your customers as pigeons, a name often given to novice gamblers, so that is the world that springs to mind. You have a nervous habit, I notice. The way you roll your hand it suggests the dice table.'

'And the prison sentence?'

'You have been given what I believe is called a terrier crop, a prison haircut, although you are displaying a further growth of about eight weeks, suggesting that you were released in September. This is confirmed by the colour of your skin. Last month was unusually warm and sunny and it is evident that you were at liberty at that time. There are marks on both your wrists that tell me you wore shackles while you were in jail and that you struggled against them. The receipt of stolen goods is the most obvious crime for a p.a.w.nbroker. As to this shop, the fact that you have been absent for a lengthy period is immediately apparent from the books in the window which have faded in the sunlight, and from the layer of dust on the shelves. At the same time, I notice many objects this watch among them which are dust-free and so have been added recently, indicating a brisk trade.'

Johnson handed over the prize. 'Thank you, Mr Holmes,' he said. 'You are quite correct in every respect. I come from a good family in Suss.e.x and did hope once to be a pianist. When that failed, I went into the law and might well have prospered except that I found it so d.a.m.nably dull. Then, one evening, a friend introduced me to the Franco-German Club in Charlotte Street. I don't suppose you know it. There's nothing French or German about it; the place is actually run by a Jew. Well, the moment I saw it the unmarked door with its little grating, the windows painted out, the dark staircase leading to the brightly lit rooms above I was doomed. Here was the excitement that was so missing from my life. I paid my two and sixpence subscription and was introduced to baccarat, to roulette, to hazard and, yes, to dice. I found myself slogging through the day simply to arrive at the enticements of the night. Suddenly I was surrounded by brilliant new friends, all of them delighted to see me and all of them, of course, bonnets, which is to say they were paid by the proprietor to entice me to play. Sometimes I won. More often I lost. Five pounds one night. Ten pounds the next. Need I tell you more? My work became careless. I was sacked from my job. With the last of my savings I set myself up in these premises, thinking that a new profession, no matter how low and wretched, would occupy my mind. Not a bit of it! I still go back, night after night. I cannot prevent myself and who knows what the future holds for me? I am ashamed to think what my parents would say if they could see me. Fortunately, they are both dead. I have no wife or children. If I have one consolation, it is that n.o.body in this world cares about me. I therefore have no reason to be ashamed.'

Holmes paid him the money and together we returned to Baker Street. However, if I had thought we had come to the end of our day's labours, I was very much mistaken. Holmes had examined the watch in the cab. It was a handsome piece, a minute repeater with a white enamel face in a gold case manufactured by Touchon & Co of Geneva. There was no other name or inscription, but on the reverse he found an engraved image: a bird perching on a pair of crossed keys.

'A family crest?' I suggested.

'Watson, you are scintillating,' replied he. 'That is exactly what I believe it to be. And hopefully my encyclopaedia will enlighten us further.'

Sure enough, the pages revealed a raven and two keys to be the crest of the Ravenshaws, one of the oldest families in the kingdom with a manor house just outside the village of Coln St Aldwyn in Gloucestershire. Lord Ravenshaw, who had been a distinguished Foreign Minister in the current Administration, had recently died at the age of eighty-two. His son, the Honourable Alec Ravenshaw, was his only heir and had now inherited both the t.i.tle and the family estate. Somewhat to my dismay, Holmes insisted on leaving London at once, but I knew him only too well, and, in particular, the restlessness that was so much part of his character. I did not attempt to argue. Nor, for that matter, would I have considered staying behind. Now that I come to think of it, I was as a.s.siduous in my duties as his biographer as he was in the pursuit of his various investigations. Perhaps that was why the two of us got on so well.

I just had time to pack a few things for an overnight stay, and by the time the sun set we found ourselves in a pleasant inn, dining on a leg of lamb with mint sauce and a pint of quite decent claret. I forget now what we talked about over the meal. Holmes asked after my practice and I think I described to him some of Metc.h.i.n.koff's interesting work on cellular theory. Holmes always took a keen interest in matters to do with medicine or science, although, as I have related elsewhere, he was careful not to clutter his mind with information which, in his opinion, had no material value. Heaven protect the man who tried to have a conversation with him about politics or philosophy. A ten-year-old child would know more. One thing I can say about that evening: at no time did we discuss the business at hand and, though the time pa.s.sed in the easy conviviality that the two of us had so often enjoyed, I could tell that this was quite purposeful. Inwardly, he was still uneasy. The death of Ross preyed on him and would not let him rest.

Before he had even taken breakfast, Holmes had sent his card up to Ravenshaw Hall, asking for an audience, and the reply came soon enough. The new Lord Ravenshaw had some business to take care of, but would be pleased to see us at ten o'clock. We were there as the local church struck the hour, walking up the driveway to a handsome Elizabethan manor house built of Cotswold stone and surrounded by lawns that sparkled with the morning frost. Our friend, the raven with two keys, appeared in the stonework beside the main gate and again in the lintel above the front door. We had come on foot, a short and pleasant walk from our inn, but as we approached we noticed that there was a carriage parked outside, and suddenly a man came hurrying out of the house, climbed into it and swung the door shut behind him. The coachman whipped on the horses and a moment later he was gone, rattling past us on the drive. But I had already recognised him. 'Holmes,' I said. 'I know that man!'

'Indeed so, Watson. It was Mr Tobias Finch, was it not? The senior partner in the picture gallery Carstairs and Finch of Albemarle Street. A very singular coincidence, do you not think?'

'It certainly seems very strange.'

'We should perhaps broach the subject with a certain delicacy. If Lord Ravenshaw is finding it necessary to sell off some of his family's heirlooms-'

'He could be buying.'

'That is also a possibility.'

We rang the doorbell and were admitted by a footman who led us through the hall and into a drawing room of truly baronial proportions. The walls were partly wood-panelled with family portraits hanging above, and a ceiling so high that no visitor would dare raise his voice for fear of the echo. The windows were mullioned and looked out onto a rose garden with a deer park beyond. Some chairs and sofas had been arranged around a ma.s.sive stone fireplace there was the raven once again, carved into the lintel with green logs crackling in the flames. Lord Ravenshaw was standing there, warming his hands. My first impression was not entirely favourable. He had silver hair, combed back, and a ruddy, unattractive face. His eyes protruded quite conspicuously and it struck me that this might be due to some abnormality of the thyroid gland. He was wearing a riding coat and leather boots and carried a crop tucked under his arm. Even before we had introduced ourselves, he seemed impatient and keen to be on his way.

'Mr Sherlock Holmes,' he said. 'Yes, yes. I think I have heard of you. A detective? I cannot imagine any circ.u.mstances in which your business would connect with mine.'

'I have something that I believe may belong to you, Lord Ravenshaw.' We had not been invited to sit down. Holmes took out the watch and carried it over to the master of the estate.

Ravenshaw took it. For a moment he weighed it in his hand, as if uncertain it was even his. Slowly, it dawned on him that he recognised it it. He wondered how Holmes had found it. Nonetheless, he was pleased to have it back. He spoke not a word but all these emotions pa.s.sed across his face and even I found them easy to read. 'Well, I am very much obliged to you,' he said, at length. 'I am very fond of this watch. It was given to me by my sister. I never thought I would see it again.'

'I would be interested to know how you lost it, Lord Ravenshaw.'

'I can tell you exactly, Mr Holmes. It happened in London during the summer; I was there for the opera.'

'Can you remember the month?'

'It was June. As I climbed out of my carriage, a young street urchin ran into me. He couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen. I thought nothing of it at the time, but during the interval I looked to see the time and of course discovered that I had been pickpocketed.'

'The watch is a handsome one, and you obviously value it. Did you report the incident to the police?'

'I do not quite understand the purpose of these questions, Mr Holmes. For that matter, I'm rather surprised that a man of your reputation should have troubled to have come all this way from London to return it. I take it you are hoping for a reward?'

'Not at all. The watch is part of a wider investigation and I hoped you might be able to help.'

'Well, I'm afraid I must disappoint you. I know nothing more. And I didn't report the theft, knowing that there are thieves and scoundrels on every street corner and doubting that there was anything the police would be able to do, and so why waste their time? I am very grateful to you for returning the watch to me, Mr Holmes, and I am perfectly happy to pay you for your travel expenses and time. But other than that, I think I must wish you a good day.'

'I have just one last question, Lord Ravenshaw,' Holmes said, with equanimity. 'There was a man leaving here as we arrived. Unfortunately, we just missed him. I wonder if I was right in recognising an old friend of mine, Mr Tobias Finch?'

'A friend?' As Holmes had suspected, Lord Ravenshaw was not pleased to have been discovered in the company of the art dealer.

'An acquaintance.'

'Well, since you ask, yes, it was he. I do not enjoy discussing family business, Mr Holmes, but you might as well know that my father had execrable taste in art and it is my intention to rid myself of at least part of his collection. I have been speaking to several galleries in London. Carstairs and Finch is the most discreet.'

'And has Mr Finch ever mentioned to you the House of Silk?'

Holmes asked the question and the silence that ensued happened to coincide with the snapping of a log in the fire so that the sound came almost as a punctuation mark.

'You said you had one question, Mr Holmes. That is a second and I have had enough, I think, of your impertinence. Am I to call for my servant or will you now leave?'

'I am delighted to have met you, Lord Ravenshaw.'

'I am grateful to you for returning my watch, Mr Holmes.'

I was glad to be out of that room, for I had felt almost trapped in the midst of so much wealth and privilege. As we stepped onto the path and began to walk back down to the gate, Holmes chuckled. 'Well there's another mystery for you, Watson.'

'He seemed unusually hostile, Holmes.'

'I refer to the theft of the watch. If it was taken in June, Ross could not have been responsible for, as far as we know, he was at the Chorley Grange School for Boys at that time. According to Jones, it was p.a.w.ned a few weeks ago, in October. So what had happened to it in the four months in-between? If it was Ross who stole it, why did he hold on to it for so long?'

We had almost reached the gate when a black bird flew overhead, not a raven but a crow. I followed it with my eye and as I did so, something made me turn and glance back at the hall. And there was Lord Ravenshaw, standing at the window, watching us leave. His hands were on his hips and his round, bulging eyes were fixed on us. And although I could have been mistaken for we were some distance away, his face, it seemed to me, was filled with hate.

NINE.

The Warning 'There is no helping it,' Holmes said with a sigh of irritation. 'We are going to have to call upon Mycroft.'

I had first met Mycroft Holmes when he had asked for help on the behalf of a neighbour of his, a Greek interpreter who had fallen in with a vicious pair of criminals. Until that moment, I had not the remotest idea that Holmes had a brother seven years older than himself. Indeed, I had never thought of him as having any family at all. It may seem strange that a man whom I could quite reasonably call my closest friend and one in whose company I had spent many hundreds of hours had never once mentioned his childhood, his parents, the place where he was born or anything else relating to his life before Baker Street. But, of course, that was his nature. He never celebrated his birthday and I only discovered the date when I read it in his obituaries. He once mentioned to me that his ancestors had been country squires and that one of his relations was a quite well-known artist but in general he preferred almost to pretend that his family had never existed, as if a prodigy such as himself had sprung unaided onto the world stage.

When I first heard that Holmes had a brother, it humanised him or at least, it did until I met the brother. Mycroft was, in many ways, as peculiar as he: unmarried, unconnected, existing in a small world of his own creation. This was largely defined by the Diogenes Club in Pall Mall where he was to be found every day from a quarter to five until eight o'clock. I believe he had an apartment somewhere close by. The Diogenes Club, as is well known, catered to the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town. n.o.body ever spoke to each other. In fact, talking was not allowed at all, except in the Stranger's Room, and even there the conversation hardly flowed. I remember reading in a newspaper that the hall porter had once wished a member good evening and had been promptly dismissed. The dining room had all the warmth and conviviality of a Trappist monastery, although the food was at least superior as the club employed a French chef of some renown. That Mycroft enjoyed his food was evident from his frame, which was quite excessively corpulent. I can still see him wedged into a chair with a brandy on one side and a cigar on the other. It was always disconcerting to meet him, for I would glimpse in him, just for a moment, some of the features of my friend: the light grey eyes, the same sharpness of expression, but they would seem strangely out of place, translated, as it were, to this animated mountain of flesh. Then Mycroft would turn his head and he would be a complete stranger to me, the sort of man who somehow warned you to keep your distance. I did sometimes wonder what the two of them might have been like as boys. Had they ever fought together, read together, kicked a ball between them? It was impossible to imagine, for they had grown up to become the sort of men who would like you to think that they had never been boys at all.

When Holmes first described Mycroft to me, he had said that he was an auditor, working for a number of government departments. But actually this was only half the truth and I later learned that his brother was much more important and influential. I refer, of course, to the adventure of the Bruce-Partington plans when the blueprints for a top secret submarine were stolen from the Admiralty. It was Mycroft who was charged with getting them back, and that was when Holmes admitted to me that he was a vital figure in government circles, a human repository of arcane facts, the man that every department consulted when something needed to be known. It was Holmes's opinion that, had he chosen to be a detective he might have been his equal or even, I was astonished to hear him admit, his superior. But Mycroft Holmes suffered from a singular character flaw. He had a streak of indolence so ingrained that it would have rendered him unable to solve any crime, for the simple reason that he would have been unable to interest himself in it. He is still alive, by the way. When I last heard, he had been knighted and was the chancellor of a well-known university, but he has since retired.

'Is he in London?' I asked.

'He is seldom anywhere else. I will inform him that we intend to visit the club.'

The Diogenes was one of the smaller clubs on Pall Mall, designed rather like a Venetian palazzo in the Gothic style, with highly ornate, arched windows and small bal.u.s.trades. This had the effect of making the interior rather gloomy. The front door led to an atrium which rose the full length of the building with a domed window high above but the architect had cluttered the place with too many galleries, columns and staircases and the result was that very little light was able to disseminate its way through. Visitors were permitted only on the ground floor. According to the rules, there were two days of the week when they could accompany a member to the dining room above, but in the seventy years since the club had been founded, this had never yet occurred. Mycroft received us, as always, in the Stranger's Room, with its oak bookshelves bowing under the weight of so many books, its various marble busts, its bow window with views across Pall Mall. There was a portrait of the Queen above the fireplace, painted, it was said, by a member of the club who had insulted her by including a stray dog and a potato, although I was never able to grasp the significance of either.

'My dear Sherlock!' Mycroft exclaimed as he waddled in. 'How are you? You have recently lost weight, I notice. But I'm glad to see you restored to your old self.'

'And you have recovered from influenza.'

'A very mild bout. I enjoyed your monograph on tattoos. Written during the hours of the night, evidently. Have you been troubled by insomnia?'

'The summer was unpleasantly warm. You did not tell me you had acquired a parrot.'

'Not acquired, Sherlock. Borrowed. Dr Watson, a pleasure. Although it has been almost a week since you saw your wife, I trust she is well. You have just returned from Gloucestershire.'

'And you from France.'

'Mrs Hudson has been away?'

'She returned last week. You have a new cook.'

'The last one resigned.'

'On account of the parrot.'

'She always was highly strung.'

This exchange took place with such rapidity that I felt myself to be a spectator at a tennis tournament, my head swivelling from one to the other. Mycroft waved us to the sofa and settled his own bulk on a chaise longue. 'I was very sorry to hear of the death of the boy, Ross,' he said, suddenly more serious. 'You know, I have advised you against the use of these street children, Sherlock. I hope you didn't place him in harm's way.'

'It is too early to say with any certainty. You read the newspaper reports?'

'Of course. Lestrade is handling the investigation. He's not such a bad man. This business of the white ribbon, though. I find that most disturbing. I would say that, allied with the extremely painful and protracted manner of the death, it was placed there as a warning. The princ.i.p.al question you should be asking yourself is whether that warning was a general one, or whether it was directed towards you.'

'I was sent a piece of white ribbon seven weeks ago.' Holmes had brought the envelope with him. He produced it and handed it to his brother who examined it.

'The envelope tells us little,' he said. 'It was pushed through your letter box in a hurry for you see the end is scuffed. Your name written by a right-handed, educated man.' He drew out the ribbon. 'This silk is Indian. Doubtless you will have seen that for yourself. It has been exposed to sunlight, for the fabric has weakened. It is exactly nine inches in length, which is interesting. It was purchased from a milliner's and then cut into two pieces of equal length, for although one end has been cut professionally with a pair of sharp scissors, the other was sliced, roughly, with a knife. I cannot add very much more than that, Sherlock.'

'Nor did I expect you to, brother Mycroft. But I did wonder if you might be able to tell me what it signifies. Have you heard of a place or an organisation called the House of Silk?'

Mycroft shook his head. 'The name means nothing to me. It sounds like a shop. Indeed, now I think of it, I seem to remember there being a gentleman's outfitter of that name in Edinburgh. Could it not be where this ribbon was purchased?'

'That seems unlikely, given the circ.u.mstances. We heard it first mentioned by a girl who had most probably lived her whole life in London. It filled her with such fear that she struck out at Dr Watson here, inflicting a knife wound on his chest.'

'Goodness!'

'I mentioned it also to Lord Ravenshaw-'

'The son of the former Foreign Minister?'

'The very same. His reaction, I thought, was one of alarm, although he did his best not to show it.'

'Well, I can ask a few questions for you, Sherlock. Would it trouble you to call on me at the same time tomorrow? In the meantime, I will hang on to this.' He gathered the white ribbon into his pudgy hand.

But in fact we did not have to wait twenty-four hours for the result of Mycroft's enquiries. The following morning, at about ten o'clock, we heard the rattle of approaching wheels and, Holmes, who happened to be standing at the window, glanced outside. 'It's Mycroft!' he said.

I came over and joined him in time to see Holmes's brother being helped down from a landau. I realised at once that this was a remarkable occurrence, for Mycroft had never visited us at Baker Street before and only ever came once again. Holmes himself had fallen silent and there was a very sombre expression on his face, from which I understood that something quite sinister must have introduced itself into the affair to have caused such a momentous event. We had to wait some time for Mycroft to join us in the room. The front stairs were narrow and steep, doubly unsuited to a man of his bulk. Eventually he appeared in the doorway, took one look around him and sat down in the nearest chair. 'This is where you live?' he asked.

Holmes nodded.

'It is exactly as I imagined it. Even the position of the fire you sit on the right and your friend on the left, of course. Strange, is it not, how we fall into these patterns, how we are dictated to by the s.p.a.ce that surrounds us.'

'Can I offer you some tea?'

'No, Sherlock. I do not intend to stay long.' Mycroft took out the envelope and handed it to him. 'This is yours. I am returning it to you with some advice which I very much hope you will take.'

'Pray continue.'

'I do not have the answer to your question. I do not have any idea what the House of Silk is or where it may be found. Believe me when I say that I wish it were otherwise, for then you might have more reason to accept what I am about to say. You must drop this investigation immediately. You must make no further enquiries. Forget the House of Silk, Sherlock. Never mention those words again.'

'You know I cannot do that.'

'I know your character. It is the reason why I have crossed London and come to you personally. It occurred to me that, if I tried to warn you, it would only make you turn this into a personal crusade and I hoped that my coming here would underline the seriousness of what I say. I could have waited until this evening and then informed you that my enquiries had led me nowhere and left you to get on with it. But I could not do that because I am concerned that you are putting yourself into the gravest danger, you and Dr Watson too. Let me explain to you what has happened since our meeting at the Diogenes Club. I approached one or two people that I knew in certain government departments. At the time, I a.s.sumed that this House of Silk must refer to some sort of criminal conspiracy and I only wished to discover if anyone in the police or one of the intelligence services was investigating it. The people I spoke to were unable to help. At least, that is what they said.

'What happened next, however, came as a very unpleasant surprise. As I left my lodgings this morning, I was greeted by a carriage and taken to an office in Whitehall where I met a man whom I cannot identify, but whose name would be known to you and who works in close a.s.sociation with the prime minister himself. I should add that this is a person whom I know well and whose wisdom and judgement I would never question. He was not at all pleased to see me and came straight to the point, asking me why I had been asking about the House of Silk and what I meant by it. His manner, I have to say, Sherlock, was singularly hostile and I had to think very carefully before I replied. I decided at once not to mention your name otherwise it might not be me who was now knocking at your door. Having said that, it may make no difference anyway, for my relationship with you is well known and you may already be suspected. At any event, I told him merely that one of my informers had mentioned it in relation to a murder in Bermondsey, and that it had piqued my curiosity. He asked for the name of the informer and I made something up, trying to give the impression that it was a trivial affair and that my original enquiry had been nothing more than casual.

'He seemed to relax a little, although he continued to weigh his words with great caution. He told me that the House of Silk was indeed the subject of a police investigation, and it was for this reason that my sudden request had been referred to him. Things were at a delicate stage and any intervention from an outside party could do untold damage. I don't think a single word of this was true, but I pretended to acquiesce, regretting that my chance enquiry should have prompted such alarm. We spoke for a few minutes more and, after an exchange of pleasantries and a final apology from myself for wasting this gentleman's time, I took my leave. But the point is, Sherlock, that politicians at this very senior level have a way of saying a lot whilst giving away very little and this particular gentleman managed to impress upon me what I am now trying to tell you. You must leave it alone! The death of a street child, as tragic as it may be, is completely insignificant when set against the wider picture. Whatever the House of Silk is, it is a matter of national importance. The government is aware of it and is dealing with it and you have no idea of the damage you may do and the scandal you may cause if you continue to be involved. Do you understand me?'

'You could not have been more lucid.'

'And will you heed what I have said?'

Holmes reached for a cigarette. He held it for a moment as if wondering whether to light it. 'I cannot promise that,' he said. 'While I feel myself responsible for the death of the child, I owe it to him to do all I can to bring his killer or killers to justice. His task was simply to watch over a man in a hotel. But if this inadvertently drew him into some wider conspiracy, then I fear I have no choice but to pursue the matter.'

'I thought you might say that, Sherlock, and I suppose your words do you credit. But let me add this.' Mycroft got to his feet. He was anxious to be on his way. 'If you do ignore my advice and go ahead with this investigation, and if it does lead you into peril, which I believe it may, you cannot come back to me for there will be nothing I can do to help you. The very fact that I have exposed myself by asking questions on your behalf means that my hands are now tied. At the same time, I urge you once more to think again. This is not one of your petty puzzles of the police court. If you upset the wrong people, it could be the end of your career ... and worse.'