The House of Silk_ The New Sherlock Holmes Novel - Anthony Horowitz [41]
‘Is he the one you were looking for?’ Lestrade asked. ‘The boy from the hotel?’
Holmes nodded. Perhaps he did not trust himself to speak.
The boy had been beaten brutally. His ribs had been smashed, his arms, his legs, each one of his fingers. Looking at those dreadful injuries, I knew at once that they had all been been inflicted methodically, one at a time, and that death, for Ross, would have been one long tunnel of pain. Finally, at the end of it all, his throat had been cut so savagely that his head had almost been separated from his neck. I had seen dead bodies before, both with Holmes and during my time as an army surgeon, but I had never seen anything as dreadful as this, and I found it far beyond understanding that any human being could have done this to a thirteen-year-old boy.
‘It’s a bad business,’ Lestrade said. ‘What can you tell me about him, Holmes? Was he in your employ?’
‘His name was Ross Dixon,’ Holmes replied. ‘I know very little about him, Inspector. You might ask at the Chorley Grange School for Boys in Hamworth, but there may not be much that they are able to add. He was an orphan, but he has a sister who worked until recently at The Bag of Nails public house in Lambeth. You may yet find her there. Have you examined the body?’
‘We have. His pockets were empty. But there is something strange that you should see, though heaven knows what it signifies. It made me sickish – I’ll tell you that much.’
Lestrade nodded and one of the policemen knelt down and took hold of one of the small, broken, arms. The sleeve of his shirt fell back to reveal a white ribbon, knotted around the boy’s wrist. ‘The fabric is new,’ Lestrade said. ‘It’s a good quality silk from the look of it. And see – it is untouched by blood or by any of this Thames filth. I would say, therefore, that it was placed on the boy after he was killed, as some sort of sign.’
‘The House of Silk!’ I exclaimed.
‘What’s that?’
‘Do you know of it, Lestrade?’ Holmes asked. ‘Does it mean anything to you?’
‘No. The House of Silk? Is it a factory? I’ve never heard of it.’
‘But I have.’ Holmes stared into the distance, his eyes filled with horror and self-reproach. ‘The white ribbon, Watson! I have seen it before.’ He turned back to Lestrade. ‘Thank you for calling me out and for informing me of this.’
‘I hoped you might be able to shed some light on the matter. It may be, after all, that this is your fault.’
‘Fault?’ Holmes jerked round as though he had been stung.
‘I warned you about about mixing with these children. You employed the boy. You set him on the trail of a known criminal. I grant you, he may have had his own ideas and they may have been the ruin of him. But this is the result.’
I cannot say if Lestrade was being deliberately provocative but his words had an effect on Holmes that I was able to witness for myself on the journey back to Baker Street. He had sunk into the corner of the hansom and for much of the way he sat in silence, refusing to meet my eyes. His skin seemed to have stretched itself over his cheekbones and he appeared more gaunt than ever, as if he had been struck down by some virulent disease. I did not try to speak to him. I knew he needed no consolation from me. Instead, I watched and waited as he brought that enormous intellect of his to bear on the terrible turn that this adventure had taken.
‘It may be that Lestrade was right,’ he said at length. ‘Certainly, I have used my Baker Street Irregulars without much thought or consideration. It amused me to have them lined up in front of me, to give them a shilling or