The House Of Silk

official business. Are you from the police? If so, I cannot help you. I know nothing about my customers. It is my practice never to ask questions. If you have something you wish to leave with me, I will offer you a fair price. Otherwise I must wish you a good day.’
    ‘My name is Sherlock Holmes.’
    ‘The detective? I am honoured. And what brings you here, Mr Holmes? Perhaps it has something to do with a gold necklace, set with sapphires, a nice little piece? I paid five pounds for it and the police took it back again, so I gained nothing at all. Five pounds and it might have brought me twice that if it were not redeemed. But there you are. We’re all on the road to ruin but some are further ahead than others.’
    I knew that in at least one respect he was lying. Whatever Mrs Carstairs’s necklace was worth, he would have given Ross only a few pence for it. Perhaps the farthings that we had found had come from here.
    ‘We have no interest in the necklace,’ said Holmes. ‘Nor in the man who brought it here.’
    ‘Which is just as well, for the man who brought it here, an American, is dead, or so the police tell me.’
    ‘We are interested in another of your customers. A child by the name of Ross.’
    ‘I hear that Ross has also left this vale of tears. Poor odds, would you not say, to lose two pigeons in so short a space of time?’
    ‘You paid Ross money, recently.’
    ‘Who told you so?’
    ‘Do you deny it?’
    ‘I do not deny it nor do I affirm it. I merely say that I am busy and would be most grateful if you would leave.’
    ‘What is your name?’
    ‘Russell Johnson.’
    ‘Very well, Mr Johnson. I will make you a proposition. Whatever Ross brought to you, I will purchase and I will pay you a good price, but only on the condition that you play fair with me. I know a great deal about you, Mr Johnson, and if you attempt to lie to me, I will see it and I will return with the police and take what I want and you will find you have made no profit at all.’
    Johnson smiled but it seemed to me that his face was filled with melancholy. ‘You know nothing about me at all, Mr Holmes.’
    ‘No? I would say you were brought up in a wealthy family and were well educated. You might have been a successful pianist for such was your ambition. Your downfall was due to an addiction, probably gambling, quite possibly dice. You were in prison earlier this year for receiving stolen goods and were considered troublesome by the warders. You served a sentence of at least three months but were released in October and since then you have done brisk business.’
    For the first time, Johnson gave Holmes his full attention. ‘Who told you all this?’
    ‘I did not need to be told, Mr Johnson. It is all painfully apparent. And now, if you please, I must ask you again. What did Ross bring you?’
    Johnson considered, then nodded slowly. ‘I met this boy, Ross, two months ago,’ he said. ‘He was newly arrived in London, living up in King’s Cross, and was brought here by a couple of other street boys. I remember very little about him, except that he seemed well fed and better dressed than the others and that he carried with him a gentleman’s pocket watch, stolen I have no doubt. He came in a few more times after that, but he never brought in anything as good again.’ He went over to a cabinet, rummaged about and produced a watch on a chain, set in a gold casing. ‘This is the watch, and I gave the boy just five shillings for it although it’s worth at least ten pounds. You can have it for what I paid.’
    ‘And in return?’
    ‘You must tell me how you know so much about me. You are a detective, I know, but I will not believe you can have plucked so much out of the air on the basis of this one brief meeting.’
    ‘It is a matter of such simplicity that if I explain it to you, you will see you have made a bad bargain.’
    ‘But if you don’t, I’ll never sleep.’
    ‘Very well, Mr Johnson. The fact of your education is obvious from the manner of your speech. I also note the copy of Flaubert’s letters to George Sand, untranslated, which you were reading as we came in. It is a wealthy family that gives a child a solid grounding in French. You also practised long hours at the piano. The fingers of a pianist are easily recognised. That you should find yourself working in this place suggests some catastrophe in your life and the rapid loss of your wealth and position. There are not so many ways that could