The House Of Silk

him a second glass and this time he examined it briefly. ‘Opium,’ he said, before swallowing it down. ‘That is my secret. I am addicted to opium. I used to take it because I liked it. Now I cannot live without it.
    ‘Here is my story. I left my wife in Chatham until I had established myself and took up lodgings in Shadwell to be close to my new place of work. Do you know the area? It is inhabited by seamen, of course, as well as dock workers, Chinamen, lascars and blacks. Oh, it’s a colourful neighbourhood and there are enough temptations – pubs and dancing saloons – to part any fool and his money. I could tell you I was lonely and missed my family. I could simply say that I was too stupid to know any better. What difference does it make? It was twelve months ago that I paid my first fourpence for the little pellet of brown wax to be drawn from the gallipot. How low the price seemed then! How little did I know! The pleasure it gave me was beyond anything I had experienced. It was as if I had never truly lived. Of course I went back. First a month later, then a week later, then suddenly it was every day and soon it was if I had to be there every hour. I could no longer think about my work. I made mistakes and flew into an incoherent rage when I was criticised. My true friends fell away. My false ones encouraged me to smoke more and more. It wasn’t very long before my employers recognised the state into which I had fallen and they have threatened to dismiss me, but I no longer care. The desire for opium fills my every waking moment and does so even now. It’s been three days since I’ve had a smoke. Give me the reward so that I can again lose myself in the mists of oblivion.’
    I looked on the man with horror and pity, and yet there was something about him that scorned my sympathy, that seemed almost proud of what he had become. Henderson was sick. He was being destroyed, slowly, from within.
    Holmes was also grave. ‘The place where you go to take this drug – is it the House of Silk?’ he asked.
    Henderson laughed. ‘Do you really think I would have been so afraid or taken so many precautions if the House of Silk were merely an opium den?’ he cried. ‘Do you know how many opium dens there are in Shadwell and Limehouse? Fewer, they say, than ten years ago. But you can still stand at a crossroads and find one whichever direction you take. There’s Mott’s and Mother Abdullah’s and Creer’s Place and Yahee’s. I’m told you can buy the stuff if you want to at night-houses in the Haymarket and Leicester Square.’
    ‘Then what is it?’
    ‘The money!’
    Holmes hesitated, then passed across four five-pound notes. Henderson snatched them up and caressed them. A dull gleam had come into his eyes as his addiction, the lingering beast within him, awoke again. ‘Where do you think the opium comes from that supplies London and Liverpool and Portsmouth and all the other outlets in England – and Scotland and Ireland for that matter? Where do Creer or Yahee go when their stocks run low? Where is the centre of the web that stretches across the entire country? That is the answer to your question, Mr Holmes. They go to the House of Silk!
    ‘The House of Silk is a criminal enterprise that operates on a massive scale and I have heard it said – rumour, only rumour – that it has friends in the very highest places, that its tentacles have spread out to ensnare government ministers and police officers. We are talking of an import and export business, if you like, but one worth many thousands of pounds a year. The opium comes in from the east. It is transported to this central depot and from there it is distributed but at a much inflated price.’
    ‘Where is it to be found?’
    ‘In London. I do not know exactly where.’
    ‘Who runs it?’
    ‘I cannot say. I have no idea.’
    ‘Then you have hardly helped us, Mr Henderson. How can we even be sure that what you say is true?’
    ‘Because I can prove it.’ He coughed unpleasantly and I recalled that cracked lips and a dry mouth were both symptoms of the long-term use of the drug. ‘I have long been a customer at Creer’s Place. It’s done up to be Chinese, with a few tapestries and fans, and I see a few Orientals in there sometimes, coiled up together on the floor. But the man who runs it is as English as you or I and a more vicious and uncharitable sort you wouldn’t want to meet. Black eyes and a head like a dead man’s skull. Oh,