The House Of Silk

found my feelings towards her growing even as the coast of America slipped away behind me. I have to say that I have always sneered at the concept of “love at first sight”, Mr Holmes. It is something I may have read in yellow-back novels but which I have never believed. Nonetheless, that is what occurred. By the time we arrived in England, I knew that I had found the woman with whom I wished to spend the rest of my life.’
    ‘And what, may I ask, was the reason for your visit to England?’ Holmes asked, turning to the wife.
    ‘I was married briefly in Chicago, Mr Holmes. My husband worked in real estate, and although in business he was well respected in the community, and a regular churchgoer, he was never kind to me. He had a dreadful temper and there were times when I even feared for my safety. I had few friends and he did everything in his power to keep it that way. In the last months of our marriage he actually confined me to the house, afraid perhaps that I might speak out against him. But then, quite suddenly, he became ill with tuberculosis and died. Sadly, his house and much of his wealth went to his two sisters. I was left with little money, no friends and no reason to wish to stay in America. And so I left. I was coming to England for a new start.’ She glanced down and added, with a look of humility, ‘I had not expected to come across it so soon, nor to find the happiness that had for so long been missing from my life.’
    ‘You mentioned a travelling companion who was with you on the
Catalonia
,’ Holmes remarked.
    ‘I hired her in Boston. I had never met her before – and she left my employ soon after we arrived.’
    Outside, in the corridor, the clock chimed the hour. Holmes sprang to his feet with a smile on his face and that sense of energy and excitement that I knew so well. ‘We must waste no further time!’ he exclaimed. ‘I wish to examine the safe and the room in which it is contained. Fifty pounds has been taken, you say. Not a very large sum of money, all things considered. Let us see what, if anything, the thief has left behind.’
    But before we could make a move, another woman came into the room and I saw at once that, though part of the household, she was as different from Catherine Carstairs as could be imagined. She was plain and unsmiling, dressed in grey, with dark hair tightly bound at the back of her neck. She wore a silver cross and her hands were knotted together as if in prayer. From her dark eyes, her pale skin and the shape of her lips, I surmised that she must be related to Carstairs. She had none of his theatricality but was more like the prompter, for ever cast into the shadows, waiting for him to forget his lines.
    ‘What now?’ she demanded. ‘First I am disturbed in my room by police officers asking absurd questions to which I cannot possibly know the replies. And that is not enough? Are we to invite the whole world in to invade our privacy?’
    ‘This is Mr Sherlock Holmes, Eliza,’ Carstairs stammered. ‘I told you that I consulted with him yesterday.’
    ‘And much good did it do you. There was nothing he could do; that was what he told you. A fine consultation, Edmund, I am sure. We could all of us have been murdered in our beds.’
    Carstairs glanced at her fondly but at the same time with exasperation. ‘This is my sister, Eliza,’ he said.
    ‘You reside in this house?’ Holmes asked her.
    ‘I am tolerated, yes,’ replied the sister. ‘I have an attic room where I keep myself to myself and everyone seems to prefer it that way. I reside here, but I am not part of this family. You might as well speak to the servants as to me.’
    ‘You know that’s not fair, Eliza,’ Mrs Carstairs said.
    Holmes turned to Carstairs. ‘Perhaps you might tell me how many people there are in the house.’
    ‘Apart from myself and Catherine, Eliza does indeed occupy the top floor. We have Kirby, who is our footman and man-of-all-work. It was he who showed you in. His wife acts as our housekeeper and the two of them reside downstairs. They have a young nephew, Patrick, who came to us recently from Ireland and who acts as the kitchen boy and runs errands, and there is a scullery maid, Elsie. In addition, we have a coachman and groom but they live in the village.’
    ‘A large household and a busy one,’ Holmes remarked. ‘But we were about to examine the safe.’
    Eliza Carstairs remained where she was. The rest of us went out of the living room, down