We hurried forward, turning the corner just as two figures — the house steward who had greeted us and another — passed below.
‘Onwards, Watson,’ Holmes whispered.
We came to a second corridor, this one with the gas lamps turned down. It was carpeted, with floral wallpaper and there were many more doors with, on either side, oil paintings in heavy frames which proved to be tawdry imitations of classical works. There was an odour in the air that was sweet and unpleasant. Even though the truth had still not fully dawned on me, my every instinct was to leave this place, to wish that I had never come.
‘We must choose a door,’ Holmes muttered. ‘But which one?’
The doors were unmarked, identical, polished oak with white porcelain handles. He chose the one closest to him and opened it. Together, we looked in. At the wooden floor, the rug, the candles, the mirror, the jug and the basin, the bearded man we had never seen before, sitting, dressed only in a white shirt open at the collar, at the boy on the bed behind him.
It could not be true. I did not want to believe it. But nor could I disavow the evidence of my own eyes. For that was the secret of the House of Silk. It was a house of ill-repute, nothing more, nothing less; but one designed for men with a gross perversion and the wealth to indulge it. These men had a predilection for young boys and their wretched victims had been drawn from those same schoolchildren I had seen at Chorley Grange, plucked off the London streets with no families or friends to care for them, no money and no food, for the most part ignored by a society to which they were little more than an inconvenience. They had been forced or bribed into a life of squalor, threatened with torture or death if they did not comply. Ross had briefly been one of them. No wonder he had run away. And no wonder his sister had tried to stab me, believing I had come to take him back. What sort of country did I live in, at the end of the last century, I wonder, that could so utterly abandon its young? They could fall ill. They could starve. And worse. Nobody cared.
All these thoughts raced through my consciousness in the few seconds that we stood there. Then the man noticed us. ‘What the devil you do you think you’re doing?’ he thundered.
Holmes closed the door. At that very moment, there was a cry from downstairs as the master of the house entered the drawing room and found that we had gone. The piano music stopped. I wondered what we should do next, but a second later the decision was taken from us. A door opened further down the corridor and a man stepped out, fully dressed but with his clothes in disarray, his shirt hanging out at the back. This time I knew him at once. It was Inspector Harriman.
He saw us. ‘You!’ he exclaimed.
He stood, facing us. Without a second thought, I took out my revolver and fired the single shot that would bring Lestrade and his men rushing to our aid. But I did not fire into the air as I could have done. I aimed at Harriman and pulled the trigger with a murderous intent which I had never felt before and have never felt since. For the only time in my life, I knew exactly what it meant to wish to kill a man.
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 horse — and not the healthiest specimen at that. Somehow I managed to clamber into the back and then we were off in pursuit, ignoring the cries of the driver who had been smoking a cigarette nearby and hadn’t noticed us until it was too late. We burst through the gates, then swept round into the lane. With Holmes whipping it on, the horse proved to have more spirit than we might have expected and the little dog cart simply flew over the snow-covered surface. We might have one horse less than Harriman, but our vehicle was lighter and more agile. Perched high up, I could only cling on for dear life, thinking that if I fell off I would surely break my neck.
This was no night for a chase. The snow was sweeping at us horizontally, punching at us in a series of continuous bursts. I could not begin to understand how Holmes could see, for every time I tried to peer into the darkness I was instantly blinded and my cheeks were already numb with cold. But there was Harriman, no more than fifty yards ahead of us. I heard him cry out with vexation, heard the lash of his whip. Holmes was sitting in front of me, crouched forward, holding the reins with both hands, keeping his balance only with his feet. Every pothole threatened to throw him out. The slightest curve caused us to skid madly across the icy surface of the road. I wondered if the splinter bars could possibly hold, and in my mind’s eye I saw imminent catastrophe as our steed, excited by the chase, ended up dashing us to pieces. The hill was steep and it was as if we were plunging into a chasm with the snow swirling all around us and the wind sucking us down.