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Contents

Cover

Dedication

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Preface

One: The Wimbledon Art Dealer

Two: The Flat Cap Gang

Three: At Ridgeway Hall

Four: The Unofficial Police Force

Five: Lestrade Takes Charge

Six: Chorley Grange School for Boys

Seven: The White Ribbon

Eight: A Raven and Two Keys

Nine: The Warning

Ten: Bluegate Fields

Eleven: Under Arrest

Twelve: The Evidence in the Case

Thirteen: Poison

Fourteen: Into the Dark

Fifteen: Holloway Prison

Sixteen: The Disappearance

Seventeen: A Message

Eighteen: The Fortune-Teller

Nineteen: The House of Silk

Twenty: Keelan O’Donaghue

Afterword

Anthony Horowitz on Writing The House of Silk: Conception, Inspiration and The Ten Rules

Ten Fiendishly Difficult Questions about Sherlock Holmes

Answers

Copyright

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Lee Jackson who greatly helped with the research for this book. His excellent website, www.victorianlondon.org, is a brilliant (and free) resource for anyone interested in the period. Two books that I found particularly useful were London in the 19th Century by Jerry White and Life in Victorian Britain by Michael Paterson although I also borrowed liberally from contemporary authors including George Gissing, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Arthur Morrison and Henry Mayhew. Thanks also to the Sherlock Holmes Society who have (so far) been genial and supportive and in particular to one of their number, Dr Marina Stajic, who kindly shared her knowledge of forensic toxology with me at the House of Commons. My agent, ‘agent of the year’, Robert Kirby first suggested this book – and at Orion, Malcolm Edwards has been incredibly patient, waiting eight years for me to write it. Finally, above all, I must acknowledge the genius of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle whom I first encountered when I was sixteen and whose extraordinary creation has inspired so much of my own work. Writing this book has been a joy and my one hope is that I will have done some justice to the original.

12, 13, 14 ASH

Preface

I have often reflected upon the strange series of circumstances that led me to my long association with one of the most singular and remarkable figures of my age. If I were of a philosophical frame of mind I might wonder to what extent any one of us is in control of our own destiny, or if indeed we can ever predict the far-reaching consequences of actions which, at the time, may seem entirely trivial.

For example, it was my cousin, Arthur, who recommended me as Assistant Surgeon to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers because he thought it would be a useful experience for me and he could not possibly have foreseen that a month later I would be dispatched to Afghanistan. At that time the conflict which came to be known as the Second Anglo-Afghan War had not even commenced. And what of the Ghazi who, with a single twitch of the finger, sent a bullet hurtling into my shoulder at Maiwand? Nine hundred British and Indian souls died that day and it was doubtless his intention that I would be one of them. But his aim was awry, and although I was badly wounded, I was saved by Jack Murray, my loyal and good-hearted orderly who managed to carry me over two miles of hostile territory and back to British lines.

Murray died at Kandahar in September of that year so would never know that I was invalided home and that I then devoted several months – small tribute to his efforts on my behalf – to a somewhat wasteful existence on the fringes of London society. At the end of that time, I was seriously considering a move to the South Coast, a necessity forced on me by the stark reality of my rapidly diminishing finances. It had also been suggested to me that the sea air might be good for my health. Cheaper rooms in London would have been a more desirable alternative and I did very nearly take lodgings with a stockbroker on the Euston Road. The interview did not go well and immediately afterwards I made my decision. It would be Hastings: less convivial perhaps, than Brighton, but half the price. My