The House Of Silk

have happened; alcohol, drugs, a poor business speculation perhaps. But you speak of odds and refer to your customers as pigeons, a name often given to novice gamblers, so that is the world that springs to mind. You have a nervous habit, I notice. The way you roll your hand – it suggests the dice table.’
    ‘And the prison sentence?’
    ‘You have been given what I believe is called a terrier crop, a prison haircut, although you are displaying a further growth of about eight weeks, suggesting that you were released in September. This is confirmed by the colour of your skin. Last month was unusually warm and sunny and it is evident that you were at liberty at that time. There are marks on both your wrists that tell me you wore shackles while you were in jail and that you struggled against them. The receipt of stolen goods is the most obvious crime for a pawnbroker. As to this shop, the fact that you have been absent for a lengthy period is immediately apparent from the books in the window which have faded in the sunlight, and from the layer of dust on the shelves. At the same time, I notice many objects – this watch among them – which are dust-free and so have been added recently, indicating a brisk trade.’
    Johnson handed over the prize. ‘Thank you, Mr Holmes,’ he said. ‘You are quite correct in every respect. I come from a good family in Sussex and did hope once to be a pianist. When that failed, I went into the law and might well have prospered except that I found it so damnably dull. Then, one evening, a friend introduced me to the Franco-German Club in Charlotte Street. I don’t suppose you know it. There’s nothing French or German about it; the place is actually run by a Jew. Well, the moment I saw it – the unmarked door with its little grating, the windows painted out, the dark staircase leading to the brightly lit rooms above – I was doomed. Here was the excitement that was so missing from my life. I paid my two and sixpence subscription and was introduced to baccarat, to roulette, to hazard and, yes, to dice. I found myself slogging through the day simply to arrive at the enticements of the night. Suddenly I was surrounded by brilliant new friends, all of them delighted to see me and all of them, of course, bonnets, which is to say they were paid by the proprietor to entice me to play. Sometimes I won. More often I lost. Five pounds one night. Ten pounds the next. Need I tell you more? My work became careless. I was sacked from my job. With the last of my savings I set myself up in these premises, thinking that a new profession, no matter how low and wretched, would occupy my mind. Not a bit of it! I still go back, night after night. I cannot prevent myself and who knows what the future holds for me? I am ashamed to think what my parents would say if they could see me. Fortunately, they are both dead. I have no wife or children. If I have one consolation, it is that nobody in this world cares about me. I therefore have no reason to be ashamed.’
    Holmes paid him the money and together we returned to Baker Street. However, if I had thought we had come to the end of our day’s labours, I was very much mistaken. Holmes had examined the watch in the cab. It was a handsome piece, a minute repeater with a white enamel face in a gold case manufactured by Touchon & Co of Geneva. There was no other name or inscription, but on the reverse he found an engraved image: a bird perching on a pair of crossed keys.
    ‘A family crest?’ I suggested.
    ‘Watson, you are scintillating,’ replied he. ‘That is exactly what I believe it to be. And hopefully my encyclopaedia will enlighten us further.’
    Sure enough, the pages revealed a raven and two keys to be the crest of the Ravenshaws, one of the oldest families in the kingdom with a manor house just outside the village of Coln St Aldwyn in Gloucestershire. Lord Ravenshaw, who had been a distinguished Foreign Minister in the current Administration, had recently died at the age of eighty-two. His son, the Honourable Alec Ravenshaw, was his only heir and had now inherited both the title and the family estate. Somewhat to my dismay, Holmes insisted on leaving London at once, but I knew him only too well, and, in particular, the restlessness that was so much part of his character. I did not attempt to argue. Nor, for that matter, would I have considered staying behind. Now that I come to think of it, I was as assiduous in my duties as his biographer