The House Of Silk

interested to know how you lost it, Lord Ravenshaw.’
    ‘I can tell you exactly, Mr Holmes. It happened in London during the summer; I was there for the opera.’
    ‘Can you remember the month?’
    ‘It was June. As I climbed out of my carriage, a young street urchin ran into me. He couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. I thought nothing of it at the time, but during the interval I looked to see the time and of course discovered that I had been pickpocketed.’
    ‘The watch is a handsome one, and you obviously value it. Did you report the incident to the police?’
    ‘I do not quite understand the purpose of these questions, Mr Holmes. For that matter, I’m rather surprised that a man of your reputation should have troubled to have come all this way from London to return it. I take it you are hoping for a reward?’
    ‘Not at all. The watch is part of a wider investigation and I hoped you might be able to help.’
    ‘Well, I’m afraid I must disappoint you. I know nothing more. And I didn’t report the theft, knowing that there are thieves and scoundrels on every street corner and doubting that there was anything the police would be able to do, and so why waste their time? I am very grateful to you for returning the watch to me, Mr Holmes, and I am perfectly happy to pay you for your travel expenses and time. But other than that, I think I must wish you a good day.’
    ‘I have just one last question, Lord Ravenshaw,’ Holmes said, with equanimity. ‘There was a man leaving here as we arrived. Unfortunately, we just missed him. I wonder if I was right in recognising an old friend of mine, Mr Tobias Finch?’
    ‘A friend?’ As Holmes had suspected, Lord Ravenshaw was not pleased to have been discovered in the company of the art dealer.
    ‘An acquaintance.’
    ‘Well, since you ask, yes, it was he. I do not enjoy discussing family business, Mr Holmes, but you might as well know that my father had execrable taste in art and it is my intention to rid myself of at least part of his collection. I have been speaking to several galleries in London. Carstairs and Finch is the most discreet.’
    ‘And has Mr Finch ever mentioned to you the House of Silk?’
    Holmes asked the question and the silence that ensued happened to coincide with the snapping of a log in the fire so that the sound came almost as a punctuation mark.
    ‘You said you had one question, Mr Holmes. That is a second and I have had enough, I think, of your impertinence. Am I to call for my servant or will you now leave?’
    ‘I am delighted to have met you, Lord Ravenshaw.’
    ‘I am grateful to you for returning my watch, Mr Holmes.’
    I was glad to be out of that room, for I had felt almost trapped in the midst of so much wealth and privilege. As we stepped onto the path and began to walk back down to the gate, Holmes chuckled. ‘Well there’s another mystery for you, Watson.’
    ‘He seemed unusually hostile, Holmes.’
    ‘I refer to the theft of the watch. If it was taken in June, Ross could not have been responsible for, as far as we know, he was at the Chorley Grange School for Boys at that time. According to Jones, it was pawned a few weeks ago, in October. So what had happened to it in the four months in-between? If it was Ross who stole it, why did he hold on to it for so long?’
    We had almost reached the gate when a black bird flew overhead, not a raven but a crow. I followed it with my eye and as I did so, something made me turn and glance back at the hall. And there was Lord Ravenshaw, standing at the window, watching us leave. His hands were on his hips and his round, bulging eyes were fixed on us. And although I could have been mistaken for we were some distance away, his face, it seemed to me, was filled with hate.

NINE
The Warning

    ‘There is no helping it,’ Holmes said with a sigh of irritation. ‘We are going to have to call upon Mycroft.’
    I had first met Mycroft Holmes when he had asked for help on the behalf of a neighbour of his, a Greek interpreter who had fallen in with a vicious pair of criminals. Until that moment, I had not the remotest idea that Holmes had a brother seven years older than himself. Indeed, I had never thought of him as having any family at all. It may seem strange that a man whom I could quite reasonably call my closest friend and one in whose company I had spent many hundreds of hours had never once mentioned his childhood, his parents, the place where he was born or