The House Of Silk

the corridor and into Carstairs’s study, which was at the very back of the house with a view of the garden and, in the distance, an ornamental pond. This turned out to be a comfortable, well-appointed room with a desk framed by two windows, velvet curtains, a handsome fireplace and some landscapes which, from their bright colours and the almost haphazard way the paint had been applied, I knew must belong to the impressionist school of which Carstairs had spoken. The safe, a solid enough affair, was tucked away in one corner. It was still open.
    ‘Is this how you found it?’ asked Holmes.
    ‘The police have examined it,’ Carstairs replied. ‘But I felt it best to leave it open until you arrived.’
    ‘You were right,’ Holmes said. He glanced at the safe. ‘The lock does not appear to have been forced which would suggest that a key has been used,’ he remarked.
    ‘There was only one key and I keep it with me all the time,’ Carstairs returned. ‘Although I asked Kirby to make a copy of it some six months ago. Catherine keeps her jewellery in the safe and when I am away – for I still travel to auctions all over the country and sometimes to Europe – she felt she should have a key of her own.’
    Mrs Carstairs had followed us into the room and was standing by the desk. She brought her hands together. ‘I lost it,’ she said.
    ‘When was that?’
    ‘I cannot really say, Mr Holmes. It may have been a month ago, it may have been longer. Edmund and I have been through this. I wanted to open the safe a few weeks ago and could not find it. The last time I used it was on my birthday, which is in August. I have no idea what happened to it after that. I am not normally so careless.’
    ‘Could it have been stolen?’
    ‘I kept it in a drawer beside my bed and nobody comes into the room apart from the servants. As far as I know, the key never left this house.’
    Holmes turned to Carstairs. ‘You did not replace the safe.’
    ‘It was always in my mind to do so. But it occurred to me that if the key had somehow been dropped in the garden or even in the village, nobody could possibly know what it opened. If, as seemed more likely, it were somewhere amongst my wife’s possessions, then it was unlikely to fall into the wrong hands. Anyway, we cannot be sure that it was my wife’s key which was used to open the safe. Kirby could have had a second copy made.’
    ‘How long has he been with you?’
    ‘Six years.’
    ‘You have had no cause to complain about him?’
    ‘None whatsoever.’
    ‘And what of this kitchen boy, Patrick? Your wife says she mistrusts him.’
    ‘My wife dislikes him because he is insolent and can be a little sly. He has been with us for only a few months and we only took him on at the behest of Mrs Kirby, who asked us to help him find employment. She will vouch for him, and I have no reason to think him dishonest.’
    Holmes had taken out his glass and examined the safe, paying particular attention to the lock. ‘You say that some jewellery was stolen,’ he said. ‘Was it your wife’s?’
    ‘No. As a matter of fact it was a sapphire necklace belonging to my late mother. Three clusters of sapphires in a gold setting. I imagine it would have little financial value to the thief but it had great sentimental value to me. She lived with us here until a few months ago until …’ He broke off and his wife went over to him, laying a hand on his arm. ‘There was an accident, Mr Holmes. She had a gas fire in her bedroom. Somehow the flame blew out and she was asphyxiated in her sleep.’
    ‘She was very elderly?’
    ‘She was sixty-nine. She always slept with the window closed, even in the summer. Otherwise she might have been saved.’
    Holmes left the safe and went over to the window. I joined him there as he examined the sill, the sashes and the frame. As was his habit, he spoke his observations aloud – not necessarily for my benefit. ‘No shutters,’ he began. ‘The window is snibbed and some distance from the ground. It has evidently been forced from the outside. The wood is splintered, which may explain the sound that Mrs Carstairs heard.’ He seemed to be making a calculation. ‘I would like, if I may, to speak to your man, Kirby. And after that I will walk in the garden, although I imagine the local police will have trampled over anything that might have furnished me with any clue as to what has taken place. Did they give you any idea of their line of