The House Of Silk

he were daring you to go to the police, to get him arrested.’
    ‘He wished to frighten us,’ Mrs Carstairs said.
    ‘But that was not the motive on his third visit. This time he returned to the house with a note which he pressed into your husband’s hand. He asked for a meeting at your local church at midday.’
    ‘He did not show up.’
    ‘Perhaps he never intended to. His final intervention in your life came when he broke into the house and stole fifty pounds and jewellery from your safe. By now, I am finding his behaviour more than remarkable. Not only does he know exactly which window to choose, he has somehow got his hands on a key lost by your wife several months before he arrived in the country. And it is interesting, is it not, that he is now more interested in money than in murder, for he is actually standing in this very house in the middle of the night. He could climb the stairs and kill you both in your bed—’
    ‘I woke up and heard him.’
    ‘Indeed so, Mrs Carstairs. But by that time he had already opened the safe. I take it that you and Mr Carstairs sleep in separate rooms, by the way?’
    Carstairs flushed. ‘I do not see that our domestic arrangements have any bearing on the case.’
    ‘But you do not deny it. Very well, let us stay with our strange and somewhat indecisive intruder. He makes his getaway to a private hotel in Bermondsey. But now events take a surprising turn when a second assailant, a man about whom we know nothing, catches up with Keelan O’Donaghue – again, we must assume it is he – stabs him to death, and takes not only his money but anything that might identify him, apart from a cigarette case which is in itself unhelpful as it bears the initials WM.’
    ‘What do you mean by all this, Mr Holmes?’ Catherine Carstairs asked.
    ‘I am merely making it clear to you, Mrs Carstairs, as it was to me from the very start, that this narrative makes no sense whatsoever – unless, that is, you start from the premise that it was not Keelan O’Donaghue who came to this house, and that it was not your husband with whom he wished to communicate.’
    ‘But that’s ridiculous. He gave my husband that note.’
    ‘And failed to appear at the church. It may help if we put ourselves in the position of this mysterious visitor. He seeks a private interview with a member of this household but that is not such a simple matter. Apart from yourself and your husband, there is your sister, various servants … Mr and Mrs Kirby, Elsie and Patrick, the kitchen boy. To begin with, he watches from a distance but finally he approaches with a note written in large letters and neither folded nor in an envelope. Clearly, his intention cannot be to post it through the door. But is it possible, perhaps, that he hopes to see the person for whom this correspondence is intended, simply to hold it up so that it can be read through the window of the breakfast room? No need to ring the bell. No need to risk the message falling into the wrong hands. It will be known to just the two of them and they can discuss their business later. Unfortunately, however, Mr Carstairs returns unexpectedly early to the house, moments before our man has had the chance to achieve his aim. So what does he do? He raises the note high above him and hands it to Mr Carstairs. He knows he is being watched from the breakfast room and his meaning now is rather different. “Find me,” he is saying. “Or I will tell Mr Carstairs everything I know. I will meet him in the church. I will meet him anywhere I please. You cannot prevent me.” Of course, he does not turn up at the assignation. He has no need to. The warning is enough.’
    ‘But with whom did he wish to speak if not with me?’ Carstairs demanded.
    ‘Who was in the breakfast room at the time?’
    ‘My wife.’ He frowned as if anxious to change the subject. ‘Who was this man, if he was not Keelan O’Donaghue?’ he asked.
    ‘The answer to that is perfectly simple, Mr Carstairs. He was Bill McParland, the Pinkerton’s detective. Consider for a moment. We know that Mr McParland was injured during the shootout in Boston and the man we discovered in the hotel room had a recent scar on his right cheek. We also know that McParland had fallen out with his employer, Cornelius Stillman, who had refused to pay him the amount of money he felt he was owed. He therefore had a grievance. And then there is his name. Bill, I would imagine, is short for William and the