The House Of Silk

around the shooting gallery with the shots ringing out below. Now, for the moment, it was silent. The two assassins were waiting for the crack of the rifles to recommence. The sound would mask two further gunshots up here. Murder is the most horrible crime of which a human being is capable, but this coldblooded, calculated, double murder struck me as particularly vile. I was still clutching my arm. All sense of feeling had left me where I had been struck, but I dragged myself to my feet, determined that I would not be killed by these men while I was on my knees.
    ‘You might as well put down your weapons and give yourselves up now,’ Holmes remarked. He was utterly calm and I began to wonder if he had indeed known all along that the two men would be here.
    ‘What?’
    ‘There is going to be no killing tonight. The shooting gallery is closed. The fair is over. Do you not hear?’
    For the first time, I realised that the barrel organ had stopped. The crowd seemed to have departed. Outside this empty and derelict room, all was silent.
    ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘I did not believe you the first time we met, Henderson. But then it was expedient to walk into your trap, if only to see what you were planning. But do you really believe I would do the same a second time?’
    ‘Put those guns down!’ a voice cried out.
    In the next few seconds, there was such a confusion of events that, at the time, I was barely able to make any sense of them. Henderson brought his gun round, meaning to fire either at me or past me. I will never know, for his finger was never able to tighten on the trigger. At the same moment, there was a fusillade of shots, the muzzle of a gun flashing white, and he was literally thrown off his feet, a fountain of blood bursting from his head. Henderson’s associate, the man he had referred to as Bratby, spun round. I do not think he intended to fire but it was enough that he was armed. A bullet hit him in the shoulder and another in the chest. I heard him cry out as he was thrown back, my gun flying out of his hand. There was a clatter as his walking stick hit the wooden floorboards and rolled away. He was not dead. Wheezing, sobbing in pain and shock, he crumpled to the ground. There was a brief pause, the silence almost as shocking as the violence that had gone before.
    ‘You left that very late, Lestrade,’ Holmes remarked.
    ‘I was interested to hear what the villain said,’ the same replied. I looked round and saw that Inspector Lestrade was indeed here, and three police officers with him, already entering the room, checking on the men who had been shot.
    ‘You heard him confess to the murders?’
    ‘Yes, indeed, Mr Holmes.’ One of his men had reached Henderson. He examined him briefly and shook his head. I had seen the wound. I was not surprised. ‘I’m afraid he will not face justice for his crimes.’
    ‘Some might say he already has.’
    ‘Even so, I would have preferred him alive, if only as a witness. I’ve put my neck on the line for you, Mr Holmes, and this night’s work could still cost me dear.’
    ‘It will cost you another commendation, Lestrade, and well you know it.’ Holmes turned his attention to me. ‘How are you bearing up, Watson? Are you hurt?’
    ‘Nothing that a little embrocation and a whisky and soda won’t cure,’ I replied. ‘But tell me, Holmes. You knew all along that this was a trap?’
    ‘I strongly suspected it. It seemed inconceivable to me that an illiterate child would keep an advertisement folded beneath his bed. And as our late friend, Henderson, said, we had already been deceived once. I am beginning to learn how our enemies work.’
    ‘Meaning …?’
    ‘They used you to find me. The men who followed you to Holborn Viaduct were not police officers. They were in the employ of our enemies, who had provided you with what appeared to be an irresistible clue in the hope that you would know of my whereabouts and would deliver it to me.’
    ‘But the name, Dr Silkin’s House of Wonders. Are you telling me that he has nothing to do with it?’
    ‘My dear Watson! Silkin is not so uncommon a name. They could have used Silkin the bootmaker in Ludgate Circus or Silkin the timber yard in Battersea. Or Silkman or Silk Way or anything that would have us believe we were closing in on the House of Silk. It was only necessary to draw me into the open so that they could finally be rid of me.’
    ‘What of you, Lestrade? How did you come to