The House Of Silk

cramped space and I lowered myself onto it.
    ‘Can you see the future?’ I asked.
    ‘It will cost you a penny.’
    I paid her the money and she took my hand, spreading it in her own so that the white ribbon was right before me. Then she stretched out a withered finger and began to trace the lines on my palm as if she could smooth them out with her touch. ‘A doctor?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And married. Happily. No children.’
    ‘You are quite correct on all three counts.’
    ‘You have recently known the pain of a separation.’ Was she referring to my wife’s sojourn in Camberwell or to the brief imprisonment of Holmes? And how could she possibly know of either? I am now, and was then, a sceptic. How could I fail to be? In my time with Holmes I found myself investigating a family curse, a giant rat and a vampire – and all three turned out to have perfectly rational explanations. I therefore waited for the gypsy to reveal to me the source of her trickery.
    ‘Have you come here alone?’ she asked.
    ‘No. I am with a friend.’
    ‘Then I have a message for you. You will have seen a shooting range contained in the building behind us.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You will discover all the answers that you seek in the rooms above it. But tread carefully, doctor. The building is condemned and the floor is lousy. You have a long lifeline. You see it here? But it has weaknesses. These creases … They are like arrows being fired towards you and there are still many more to come. You should beware lest one of them should hit …’
    ‘Thank you.’ I took my hand back as if snatching it from the flames. As sure as I was that the woman was a fake, there was something about her performance that had unnerved me. Perhaps it was the night, the scarlet shadows writhing all about me, or it could have been the constant cacophony, the music and the crowds, that were overwhelming my senses. But I had a sudden instinct that this was an evil place and that we should never have come. I climbed back down to Holmes and told him what had just transpired.
    ‘So are we now to be guided by fortune-tellers?’ was his brusque response. ‘Well, Watson, there are no other obvious alternatives. We must see this through to the end.’
    We made our way past a man with a monkey that had climbed onto his shoulder and another, naked to the waist, exposing a myriad of lurid tattoos which he animated by flexing his various muscles. The shooting gallery was before us, with a staircase twisting unevenly above. There was a volley of rifle shots. A group of apprentices were trying their luck at the bottles, but they had been drinking and their bullets disappeared harmlessly into the darkness. With Holmes leading the way, we climbed up, treading carefully, for the wooden steps gave every impression of being on the edge of collapse. Ahead of us, an irregular gap in the wall – it might once have been a door – loomed open, with only darkness beyond. I looked back and saw the gypsy woman sitting in her caravan, watching us with an evil eye. The white ribbon still dangled from her wrist. Before I reached the top I knew that I had been deceived, that we should not have come here.
    We entered the upper floor which must once have been used for the storage of coffee for the smell of it was still apparent in the grimy air. But now it was empty. The walls were mouldering. The dust was thick on every surface. The floorboards creaked beneath our feet. The music from the barrel organ seemed distant now and cut off and the murmur of the crowd had disappeared altogether. There was still enough light reflecting from the torches which blazed all around the fair to illuminate the room but it was uneven, constantly moving in such a way as to cast distorted shadows all around us, and the further we went in, the darker it would become.
    ‘Watson …’ Holmes muttered, and the tone of his voice was enough to tell me what he desired. I produced my gun and found comfort in its weight, in the touch of cold metal against my palm.
    ‘Holmes,’ I said. ‘We are wasting our time. There is nothing here.’
    ‘And yet a child has been here before us,’ replied he.
    I looked beyond him and saw, lying on the floor in the far corner, two toys that had been abandoned there. One was a spindle top, the other a lead soldier standing stiffly to attention with most of its paint worn away. There was something infinitely pathetic about them. Had they once belonged to Ross? Had