• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 662 0

to slip the key into the space between the spine and the bound edges of the pages. This I did and, taking up the candle, I carefully poured liquid wax into the two ends, in effect gluing it in place. The book still opened normally and there was nothing to suggest that it had been tampered with. Taking up my pen, I then wrote the name, Sherlock Holmes, on the frontispiece and, beneath it, an address: 122b Baker Street. To a casual observer it would appear that nothing was amiss but Holmes would recognise my hand at once and would see that the number of our lodgings had been inverted. Finally, I turned to page 122 and, using a pencil, placed a series of tiny dots, almost invisible to the naked eye, under certain letters in the text so that a new message was spelled out: YOU ARE IN GREAT DANGER. THEY PLAN TO KILL YOU. USE KEY TO CELL. I AM WAITING. JW.

Satisfied with my work, I finally went to bed and fell into a troubled sleep punctured by images of the girl, Sally, lying in the street with blood all around her, of a length of white ribbon looped around a dead boy’s wrist and of the man with the high-domed forehead, looming at me across the refectory table.

I awoke early the next day and sent a message to Lestrade, urging him once again to help arrange a visit to Holloway, no matter what Inspector Harriman had to say. To my surprise, I received a reply informing me that I could enter the prison at three o’clock that afternoon, that Harriman had concluded his preliminary investigation and that the coronor’s court had indeed been set for Thursday, two days hence. On first reading, this struck me as good news. But then I was struck by a more sinister explanation. If Harriman was part of the conspiracy, as Holmes believed and as everything about his manner and even his appearance suggested, he might well have stood aside for a quite different reason. My host of the night before had insisted that Holmes would never be allowed to stand trial. Suppose the assassins were preparing to strike! Could Harriman know that it was already too late?

I could barely contain myself throughout the morning and left Baker Street well before the appointed hour, arriving at Camden Road before the clocks had struck the half-hour. The coachman left me in front of the outer gate and, despite my protestations, hurried away, leaving me in the cold and misty air. All in all I couldn’t blame him. This wasn’t a place where any Christian soul would have chosen to linger.

The prison was of Gothic design; on first appearance a sprawling, ominous castle, perhaps something out of a fairy story written for a malevolent child. Constructed from Kentish ragstone, it consisted of a series of turrets and chimneys, flagpoles and castellated walls, with a single tower soaring above and seeming almost to disappear into the clouds. A rough, muddy track led to the main entrance, which was purposefully designed to be as unwelcoming as possible, with a massive wooden gate and steel portcullis framed by a few bare and withered trees on either side. A brick wall, at least fifteen feet high, surrounded the entire complex, but above it I could make out one of the wings, with two lines of small, barred windows whose rigid uniformity somehow hinted at the emptiness and misery of life inside. The prison had been built at the foot of a hill and, looking beyond it, it was possible to make out the pleasant pastures and slopes that rose up to Highgate. But that was another world, as if the wrong backdrop had been accidentally lowered onto the stage. Holloway Prison stood on the site of a former cemetery, and the whiff of death and decay still clung to the place, damning those who were inside, warning those without to stay away.

It was as much as I could bear to wait thirty minutes in the dismal light with my breath frosting and the cold spreading upwards through my feet. At last I walked forward, clutching the book with the key concealed in its spine, and as I entered the prison it occurred to me that were I to be discovered, this horrid place could well become my home. I think