The House Of Silk

placed great significance on her sudden illness. He insisted on seeing her for himself, although quite how he might be able to help her when I and so many other doctors had failed was beyond my comprehension.
    We knocked on the door. It was opened by Patrick, the Irish scullery boy whom I had met in the kitchen. He looked blankly at Holmes, then at me. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he scowled. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you back here again.’
    Never had I been greeted on a doorstep with quite such insolence but Holmes seemed amused. ‘Is your master in?’ he asked.
    ‘Who shall I say is calling?’
    ‘My name is Sherlock Holmes. We are expected. And who are you?’
    ‘I’m Patrick.’
    ‘That’s a Dublin accent if I’m not mistaken.’
    ‘What’s it to you?’
    ‘Patrick? Who is it? Why is Kirby not here?’ Edmund Carstairs had appeared in the hallway and came forward, clearly agitated. ‘You must forgive me, Mr Holmes. Kirby must still be upstairs with my sister. I did not expect the door to be opened by the kitchen boy. You can go now, Patrick. Go back to your place.’
    Carstairs was as immaculately attired as he had been on every occasion that I had seen him, but the lines that days of anxiety had drawn were clearly visible on his face and, like me, I suspected that he had not been sleeping well.
    ‘You received my wire,’ Holmes said.
    ‘I did. But you evidently did not receive mine. For I clearly stated, as I had already intimated to Dr Watson, that I had no further need of your services. I am sorry to say it, but you have not been helpful to my family, Mr Holmes. And I must add that I understood that you had been arrested and were in serious trouble with the law.’
    ‘Those matters have been resolved. As to your wire, Mr Carstairs, I did indeed receive it, and read what you had to say with interest.’
    ‘And you came anyway?’
    ‘You first came to me because you were being terrorised by a man in a flat cap, a man you believed to be Keelan O’Donoghue from Boston. I can tell you that I am now in command of the facts of the matter which I am happy to share with you. I can also tell you who killed the man that we found at Mrs Oldmore’s Private Hotel. You may try to persuade yourself that these things are no longer important, and if that is the case, let me put it very simply. If you wish your sister to die, you will send me away. If not, you will invite me in and hear what I have to say.’
    Carstairs hesitated and I could see that he was fighting with himself, that in some strange way he seemed almost afraid of us, but in the end his better sense prevailed. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Let me take your coats. I don’t know what Kirby is doing. It sometimes seems to me that this entire household is in disarray.’ We removed our outer garments and he gestured towards the drawing room where we had been received on our first visit.
    ‘If you will permit me, I would like to see your sister before we sit down,’ Holmes remarked.
    ‘My sister is no longer able to see anyone. Her sight has failed her. She can barely speak.’
    ‘No speech will be necessary. I wish merely to see her room. Is she still refusing to eat?’
    ‘It is no longer a question of refusal. She is unable to consume solid food. It is the best I can do to make her take a little warm soup from time to time.’
    ‘She still believes she is being poisoned.’
    ‘In my view, it is this irrational belief that has become the main cause of her illness, Mr Holmes. As I told your colleague, I have tasted every single morsel that has passed her lips with no ill-effect at all. I do not understand the curse that has come upon me. Before I met you, I was a happy man.’
    ‘And hope to be again, I am sure.’
    We climbed back up to the attic room that I had been in before. As we arrived at the doorway, the manservant, Kirby, appeared with a tray of soup, the plate untouched. He glanced at his master and shook his head, indicating that once again the patient had refused to eat. We went in. I was at once dismayed by the sight of Eliza Carstairs. How long had it been since I had last seen her? Hardly more than a week and yet in that time she had visibly deteriorated to the extent that she put me in mind of the living skeleton that I had seen advertised at Dr Silkin’s House of Wonders. Her skin was stretched in that horrible way that attends upon patients only when they are close to the end, her lips drawn back to expose her gums and