The House Of Silk

quite remarkable. And you must be Dr Watson. We have read your stories in class. The boys are delighted by them. They will not believe that you are here. Might you have time to address them? But I am running ahead of myself. You must forgive me, gentlemen, but I cannot contain my excitement. I am the Reverend Charles Fitzsimmons. Vosper tells me that you are here on serious business. Mr Vosper helps to administer this establishment and also teaches maths and reading. Please, come with me to my study. You must meet my wife and perhaps we can offer you some tea?’
    We followed the little man down a second corridor and through a door into a room which was too large and too cold to be comfortable even though some effort had been made with bookcases, a sofa and several chairs arranged around a fireplace. A large desk, piled high with documents, had been positioned so as to look out through a set of picture windows on to the lawn and the orchard beyond. It had been cold in the corridor, and it was colder here, despite the fire in the grate. The red glow and the smell of burning coal gave the illusion of warmth but little more. The rain was hammering now against the windows and running down the glass. It had drained the colour out of the fields. Although it was only the middle of the afternoon, it could just as well have been night.
    ‘My dear,’ exclaimed our host. ‘This is Mr Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. They have come to ask us for our help. Gentlemen, may I present my wife, Joanna?’
    I had not noticed the woman who had been sitting in an armchair in the darkest corner of the room, reading a volume of several hundred pages which was balanced on her lap. If this was Mrs Fitzsimmons, then the two of them made an odd couple, for she was quite remarkably tall and, I would have said, several years older than him. She was dressed entirely in black, an old-fashioned satin dress that fitted high around the neck and tight around the arms, with beaded passementerie across the shoulders. Her hair was tied in a knot behind her and her fingers were long and thin. Were I a boy, I might have thought her witch-like. Certainly, looking at the two of them, I had the perhaps unworthy thought that I could understand why Ross had chosen to run away. Had I been in his shoes, I might very well have done the same.
    ‘Will you have some tea?’ the lady asked. Her voice was as thin as the rest of her, her accent deliberately refined.
    ‘We will not inconvenience you,’ Holmes replied. ‘As you are aware, we are here on a matter of some urgency. We are looking for a boy, a street urchin whom we know only by the name of Ross.’
    ‘Ross? Ross?’ The reverend searched in his mind. ‘Ah yes! Poor, young Ross! We have not seen him for quite a while, Mr Holmes. He came to us from a very difficult background, but then so do many of the charges in our care. He did not stay with us long.’
    ‘He was a difficult and a disagreeable child,’ his wife cut in. ‘He would not obey the rules. He disrupted the other boys. He refused to conform.’
    ‘You are too hard, too hard, my dear. But it is true, Mr Holmes, that Ross was never grateful for the help that we tried to give him and did not settle into our ways. He had only been here for a few months before he ran away. That was last summer … July or August. I would have to consult my notes to be sure. May I ask why you are looking for him? I hope he has not done something amiss.’
    ‘Not at all. A few nights ago he was the witness to certain events in London. I merely wish to know what he saw.’
    ‘It sounds most mysterious, does it not, my dear? I will not ask you to elucidate further. We do not know where he came from. We do not know where he has gone.’
    ‘Then I will not take up any more of your time.’ Holmes turned to the door, then seemed to change his mind. ‘Though perhaps before we leave, you might like to tell us something about your work here. Chorley Grange is your property?’
    ‘Not at all, sir. My wife and I are employed by the Society for the Improvement of London’s Children.’ He pointed at a portrait of an aristocratic gentleman, leaning against a pillar. ‘That is the founder, Sir Crispin Ogilvy, now deceased. He purchased this farm fifty years ago, and it is thanks to his bequest that we are able to maintain it. We have thirty-five boys here, all taken from the streets of London and saved from a future picking oakum or wasting their hours on the