'All too easily and I fear I should render my methods prosaic were I to explain them.' 'My God, Holmes,' I cried when he reappeared in disguise at Baker Street. I feared for his future until I saw the familiar glint in his eye. And that was the last I saw of him until he stood in the dock accused of the murder of a young woman while under the influence of opium. 'I have made my own inquiries and further investigation will expose a scandal that reaches into the very highest echelons of society.' 'I advise you to cease your investigations into the House of Silk,' said Mycroft. I was about to inquire if he had finally got round to reading the novels of Mr Dickens, when he announced we were due to meet his brother, Mycroft. I arrived back at Baker Street to find Holmes playing a mournful Webern sonata on the violin and for a moment I feared he had succumbed once more to his penchant for cocaine. 'Do we have to go through this routine every time?' 'Ah, Lestrade! If I am not very much mistaken, you have just had an argument with your wife and posted a letter to St Albans.' 'Did someone mention my name?' inquired Inspector Lestrade. 'My dear Watson, that is precisely the kind of assumption that fool Lestrade would reach.' 'Surely it is clear the stranger is Keelan O'Donoghue,' I ventured. 'There's only one question to which we need to know the answer. 'It's all quite clear, Watson,' he said on our return home.

For his part, Holmes remained utterly silent, sitting with his eyes closed in the drawing-room. Within a few hours we found ourselves at the Carstairs residence in Wimbledon, where I couldn't fail to notice the tense atmosphere between the new Mrs Carstairs and Carstairs' sister.

'There's not a moment to lose,' said Holmes, once Carstairs had left. The story that unfolded was one of the most remarkable I had ever heard, concerning an art theft by the O'Donoghue twins in America, a marriage to an American adventuress, a burglary at a house in Wimbledon, the death of Carstairs' mother and a mysterious stranger. 'Good God, sir!' replied the stranger, 'How did you know my name?' 'It is written on your umbrella. Moments later, an agitated gentleman pushed past Mrs Hudson into Holmes' consulting room. Now, if I'm not very much mistaken, there is someone at the door in urgent need of my services.' 'My dear Watson, you manage that all by yourself. 'Do you have to make me look stupid at the beginning of every new adventure, Holmes?' I replied testily.

The house of silk by anthony horowitz