The House of Silk_ The New Sherlock Holmes Novel - Anthony Horowitz [109]
My bullet missed. At the last second, Holmes must have seen what I intended and cried out, his hand leaping towards my gun. It was enough to spoil my aim. The bullet went wild, smashing a gas lamp. Harriman ducked and ran away, reaching a second staircase and disappearing down it. At the same time, the gunshot had set off an alarm throughout the building. More doors flew open and middle-aged men lurched into the corridor, looking around them, their faces filled with panic and consternation as if they had been secretly waiting many years for their sins to be uncovered and had guessed, at once, that the moment had finally come. Down below, there was the crash of wood and the sound of shouting as the front door was forced open. I heard Lestrade calling out. There was a second gunshot. Somebody screamed.
Holmes was already moving forward, pushing past anyone who happened to get in his way, following in Harriman’s path. The Scotland Yard man had clearly decided that the game was up, but it seemed inconceivable that he would be able to escape. Lestrade had arrived. His men would be everywhere. And yet, that was evidently what Holmes feared, for he had already reached the staircase and was hurrying down. I followed, and together we reached the ground floor with its black and white tiled corridor. Here, everything was chaos. The front door was open, an icy wind blowing through the corridors and the gas lamps flickering. Lestrade’s men had already begun their work. Lord Ravenshaw, who had removed his cloak to reveal a velvet smoking jacket, ran out of one of the rooms, a cigar still in his hand. He was seized by an officer and pinned back against the wall.
‘Get your hands off me!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’
It had not yet dawned on him that the whole country would soon know who he was, and would doubtless hold him and his name in revulsion. Other clients of the House of Silk were already being arrested, bumbling around the place without courage or dignity, many of them weeping tears of self-pity. The house steward was sitting slumped on the floor, with blood trickling from his nose. I saw Robert Weeks, the teacher who had been a graduate from Baliol College, being dragged out of a room with his arm twisted behind his back.
There was a door at the very back of the house. It was open and led into a garden. One of Lestrade’s men was lying in front of it, blood pumping out of a bullet wound in his chest. Lestrade was already attending to him but seeing Holmes he looked up, his face flushed with anger. ‘It was Harriman!’ he exclaimed. ‘He fired as he came down the stairs.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Gone!’ Lestrade pointed at the open door.
Without another word, Holmes plunged after Harriman. I followed, partly because my place was always at his side but also because I wanted to be there when scores were finally settled. Harriman might only be a servant of the House of Silk, but he had made this business personal, falsely imprisoning Holmes and conniving in his murder. I would gladly have shot him. I was still sorry I had missed.
Out into the darkness and the swirling snow. We followed a path round the side of the house. The night had become a maelstrom of black and white and it was hard even to make out the buildings on the other side of the lane. But then we heard the crack of a whip and the whinny of a horse, and one of the carriages shot forward, racing towards the gate. There could be no doubt who was behind the reins. With a heavy heart and a bitter taste in my mouth, I realised that Harriman had got away, that we would have to wait in the hope that he would be found and apprehended in the days that followed.
But Holmes was having none of it. Harriman had taken a curricle, a four-wheeler drawn by two horses. Without stopping to choose from the vehicles that were left, he leapt into the nearest one, a flimsy dog cart with but one