The House Of Silk

wished to play and that if he believed it, you would believe it too, right up to the moment of revelation. It was like gazing at an obscure point on a distant landscape, at a rock or a tree which had taken on the shape, perhaps, of an animal. And yet once you had drawn closer and seen it for what it was, it would never deceive you again. I had sat down with Rivers. But now it was obvious to me that I was with Holmes.
    ‘Tell me—’ I began.
    ‘All in good time, my dear fellow,’ he interrupted. ‘First, assure me that you were not followed here.’
    ‘I am certain I am alone.’
    ‘And yet there were two men behind you at Holborn Viaduct. Policemen, from the look of them, and doubtless in the employ of our friend, Inspector Harriman.’
    ‘I didn’t see them. But I took great care leaving my wife’s carriage when it was halfway down the Strand. I didn’t allow it to come to a complete stop and slipped behind a barouche. I can assure you that if there were two men with me at the station, they are now in Kensington and wondering what became of me.’
    ‘My trusty Watson!’
    ‘But how did you know that my wife was arriving today? How did you even come to be at Holborn Viaduct at all?’
    ‘That is simplicity itself. I followed you from Baker Street, realised which train you must be meeting and managed to get ahead of you in the crowd.’
    ‘That is only the first of my questions, Holmes, and I must insist that you satisfy me on all counts, for it makes my head spin, simply to see you sitting here. Let us start with Dr Trevelyan. I assume you recognised him and persuaded him to help you escape.’
    ‘That is exactly the case. It was a happy coincidence that our former client should have found employment at the prison although I would like to think that any medical man would have been persuaded to my cause, particularly when it became clear that there was a plan to murder me.’
    ‘You knew of that?’
    Holmes glanced at me keenly, and I realised that if I were not to break the pledge I had given to my sinister host, two nights before, then I must pretend to know nothing at all. ‘I expected it from the moment I was arrested. It was clear to me that the evidence against me would begin to fall apart as soon as I was allowed to speak and so, of course, my enemies would not permit it. I was waiting for an attack of any description and took particular care to examine my food. Contrary to popular belief, there are very few poisons that are completely tasteless and certainly not the arsenic which they hoped would finish me. I detected it in a bowl of meat broth which was brought to me on my second evening … a particularly foolish attempt, Watson, and one that I was grateful for, as it gave me exactly the weapon that I needed.’
    ‘Was Harriman part of this plot?’ I asked, unable to keep the fury out of my voice.
    ‘Inspector Harriman has either been paid well or is at the very heart of the conspiracy that you and I have uncovered. I suspect the latter. I thought of going to Hawkins. The chief warder had struck me as a civilised man and he had taken pains to ensure that my stay at the House of Correction had not been any more uncomfortable than it had to be. However, to have raised the alarm too soon might have been to precipitate a second, more lethal attack, and so instead, I requested an interview with the medical officer and, after being escorted to the hospital, was delighted to discover that we were already acquainted, for it made my task considerably easier. I showed him the sample of the soup that I had kept back and explained to him what was afoot, that I had been falsely arrested and that it was my enemies’ intention that I should never leave Holloway alive. Dr Trevelyan was horrified. He would have been inclined to believe me anyway for he still felt himself to be in debt to me following that business in Brook Street.’
    ‘How did he come to be in Holloway?’
    ‘Needs must, Watson. You will recall that he lost his employment after the death of his resident patient. Trevelyan is a brilliant man, but one whom fortune has never favoured. After drifting several months, the position at Holloway was the only one he could find and, reluctantly, he took it. We must try to help him one day.’
    ‘Indeed so, Holmes. But continue …’
    ‘His first instinct was to inform the chief warder, but I persuaded him that the conspiracy against me was too entrenched, my enemies too powerful, and that