Dr. Watson's Wanton Wimbledon

Dr. Watson's Wanton Wimbledon

It's often said that doctors make the worst patients and I was feeling fretful enough to prove the point. Still, it was a day that would cause any Londoner to chafe at having to remain indoors: high summer and a cloudless sky outside as the sun warmed the cobblestones of Baker Street and smiled through the opened windows of number 221B. The chemical retorts stacked on the acid stained workbench glistened, dust motes danced over the piles of books lying in untidy heaps and only the unused fireplace seemed mournful.

Candidly though, the fireplace was not the only thing in the room which seemed to be of no present utility to anyone. That description might well have been applied to me, John H. Watson, MD, late of the Medical Department of the Indian Army. For I was temporarily crippled by a sharp attack of gout in the toes of my left foot, an attack of such severity that I was compelled to spend most of my time sitting in my armchair by the empty fireplace with the afflicted foot resting on a footstool. Not only were my toes paining me, but the affected nerves also extended to my old Afghan bullet wound, summoning up frequent sharp twinges as unwelcome reminders of past service on the North West Frontier.

It ill becomes an old campaigner to complain about minor afflictions but such was my mood that I would have gladly welcomed the chance of a few minutes conversation with that brash young author, Mr Kipling, so that I might have told him what I thought of all the tosh he writes about the Great Game. In my humble opinion, if the Russians or anybody else want to rule Afghanistan, we Britons should offer them every encouragement to try to do so. That blighted territory has caused nothing but trouble for anybody foolish enough to meddle in its barbaric affairs and always will do.

But since there was neither Mr Kipling nor anybody else present to talk to, I perforce attempted once again to find something interesting to read in the books Mrs Hudson had placed by my side. It was not an occupation which could divert my restlessness for long. Unusually for one of my normally placid temperament I now had some inkling of the oppressive boredom which settled on Holmes when there was no case of interest to apply his mind to. For me, a brisk walk in the fresh air and a half pint of best bitter afterwards in "The Cask and Greyhound" would have settled my nerves admirably. Yet even those small pleasures were presently denied me.

Perhaps, though, the matter of most concern was the absence of the world's greatest detective. For Sherlock Holmes was carrying out one of the most important investigations of his career, and doing so far away from his usual haunts. He had been gone from London for over five days and I believed him by now to be somewhere in Transylvania.

"I have no wish at all to be dispatched on this mission, Watson," he had told me from amidst a cloud of his favorite shag tobacco on the eve of his departure to Dover. "But the request came not only from the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary: there was also an appeal from an even more majestic level, one which no loyal Englishman could deny. Indeed, never before can I remember such concern in the highest of circles, not even when the plans for the Bruce-Partington submersible vessel went astray. So I'm bound for the Balkans, and no discussion is to be entered into."

"But, Holmes, what could happen in those primitive areas to affect British interests?" I'd asked of him in surprise.

"Why, Watson, anyone who takes the trouble to read the daily newsprints knows that the Austro-Hungarian Empire is a ship of state with many in its crew ripe for mutiny. Now we have certain word that the Black Hand Gang of Serbia is planning to strike a blow which will be deemed a casus beli for a general uprising against the Imperial authorities. I agree that in times past that would have been a matter of little interest to London, but we live in a changing world. One of the most important capitals in Europe has passed into the control of a vainglorious peacock with a thirst for military adventures. Let a spark strike in the Balkans today and it might set off the whole of Europe like a gigantic powder magazine. That is a tragedy that any man must do whatever is in his power to prevent. So now I fear I must make my departure for the boat train."

I'd struggled to my feet to shake his hand and bid him God speed. "I only wish that I might come with you, Holmes, but with this accursed foot I would be more hindrance than help."

"Come, Watson, cheer up. Even if you were able to chronicle this case it's an absolute surety it could never be published, not for as long as the Austro-Hungarian and British Empires endure. And I fear you would find the foothills of the Carpathanian Mountains but a poor substitute for our usual lush hunting grounds in the home counties. No, it's best you stay and hold the fort against my return, stout fellow that you are. Farewell."

Well, if I was still holding the fort, it was as a forlorn and crippled garrison. As Holmes had done so many times before me, I wished that something would happen which would occupy my mind. And how soon and how fully was that idle wish to be granted!

"Doctor, excuse me, but there's a young lady on the doorstep who wishes to speak to Mr Holmes."

I looked up to see Mrs Hudson's honest face at the doorway. It seemed odd that she should have troubled to ascend the staircase for such a pointless announcement.

"Then she is unfortunate in her timing, as well you know, Mrs Hudson. Mr Holmes is abroad and not expected back for some time. Whatever the lady's difficulties, she must seek her help for them in some other quarter."

Mrs Hudson was as little affected by my blast of irritation as an oak tree by a gentle breeze: "Yes, Doctor, but this is not quite an ordinary young lady. Her name is Miss Oakes."

I felt my brows crease in puzzlement at her words. Was I supposed to be acquainted with this female?

"Miss Maude Oakes," Mrs Hudson repeated with a touch of asperity and suddenly I realized whom she was referring to.

"You mean the tennis player? The All England champion?"

"Yes sir, that Miss Oakes. The girl who won at Wimbledon last year and will again tomorrow, when she beats that American upstart, Daisy Cavanah."

Mrs Hudson's already sharp voice became even sharper with disapproval.

"Can you imagine that, Doctor, some Yankee coming over here and thinking they can beat the English at their own game? And yet that may well happen if Miss Maude has to go out onto the court in the same condition she's in now. In no fit state to represent her country, poor dear, I can see that much for myself."

I had no idea that Mrs Hudson had such an interest in any sport, but it was indeed possible that she might approve very strongly of Miss Oakes. Certainly everybody in the country knew about the young female champion, even those not normally interested in tennis. For Maude Oakes was in the way of being England's sweetheart and I was astonished at my own slowness in not noting her name as soon as I heard it. I well remembered once seeing her play and it was a treasured memory. A tall strapping Amazon of a girl with a figure which made men catch their breath as she ran across a court, the hem of her skirt brushing against the grass so swiftly it sometimes seemed more like flying than fleetness of foot.

Yet it was not only her athletic and sporting prowess had made her a favorite of the press, but also her beauty, and it seemed there was always some excuse for her photograph to be published in the papers once more, almost always with her tennis cap perched jauntily on top of her tresses of blonde hair.

Again, I reflected that Maude Oakes seemed the most unlikely of visitors to be expected at Sherlock Holmes' lodgings. Whatever had brought her here there was probably little enough that I could do to help her. Still, she was more than welcome to enter, for the sight of her would light up my morning as surely as the sun was brightening up everybody else's day. And presumably a few minutes conversation could be of no great matter to Miss Oakes, whatever the urgency of her business.

With the aid of my stick I had managed to struggle to my feet when Mrs Hudson showed the young lady in. There are some people who can dominate their setting just by being there, like a diamond in a piece of jewellery. They have a physical presence and a personality which seems to be cut from a more glittering cloth than the more prosaic material the rest of us have to wear during our earthly existence. Miss Oakes was one such: she was taller than me, broad shouldered, deep bosomed, yet with a waistline which would have done credit to a danseuse; her blonde hair and vivid blue eyes were made for a Viking's delight and her complexion had the freshness of newly dewed rose petals. Above all else though, my first impression of her was of a radiant energy and a grace of movement worthy of display on the stage of Covent Garden.

Quite frankly, once she was touching my hand in greeting, I was regretting my decision to admit her. For I suddenly realized how old and infirm I must seem when compared to this young and golden embodiment of youthful Britannia.

"Doctor Watson, it is good of you to see me. I'm in desperate need of sound advice. In fact it was an assistant manager of the Savoy Hotel whom suggested that I come here, though he himself knows not the half of my troubles."

Indeed, she looked to be near despair, and my heart beat in sympathy, as it must in the breast of any decent man when appealed to by a person of the feminine persuasion.

"Miss Oakes, we could hardly turn a young lady of your accomplishments away from our doorstep. But it is my sad duty to tell you that Mr Holmes is abroad and unable to help you for the present."

She nodded: "So I was informed when I arrived. But perhaps my journey has not been wasted. Frankly, the matter which brings me here is so delicate that I would actually prefer to reveal it to a medical man in the first instance. Please, may I talk freely to you?"

"Of course, Miss Oakes, of course."

The lady politely refused Mrs Hudson's offer of a dish of tea. Once we were alone and seated she produced a letter from her reticule.

"Before I show this to you, Doctor, I must first explain that during the All England Tennis Championships I have been staying at the Savoy Hotel. As you know I have been fortunate enough to win my way through to the finals, which will be played tomorrow morning at eleven thirty. Yesterday I returned to the Savoy from Wimbledon with all my playing gear in the cab with me. Somehow, between the time my cases were unloaded, and the porter bringing them to my room, my racket was stolen."

"Stolen? At the Savoy!"

"Yes, it seems quite incredible and at first the management believed some dreadful mistake had been made as they made the most desperate efforts to find out where the racket could have gone to.

"You must understand, Doctor, how much that racket means to me. It was made for me when I first began playing tennis by Mr Owen Mullard, at that time the senior proprietor of Mullard and Sons of Restoration Row, the greatest racketer there ever was and now, regrettably, deceased. Every game since then I have played with my  Millard in my hand, and I know it as well as a violinist would know his Stradivarius. I also know that I can never hope to play at my top form without my own racket. Which means I shall probably lose against Daisy Cavanah."

I was aghast at the very mention of such a possibility.

"A Yankee winning at Wimbledon! Come, come, Miss Oakes, surely the loss of even the most treasured of rackets cannot undermine your morale to the extent that you could believe such a thing possible. Why, her Majesty herself is believed to be taking an interest in the outcome of the Championships."

Miss Oakes shook her head sadly: "I fear that I shall indeed be defeated. All conflicts on the center court are eventually decided as much upon spirit as on skill, and everybody involved in the game knows how much value I place on my Mullard. When she hears that it has been taken from me Daisy Cavanah's spirits must be elevated in the same degree that mine have been lowered."

So obvious was her distress that I almost reached out to squeeze her hand in compassion. Fortunately I was able to stop myself from committing such a terrible faux pas with an unmarried lady.

"You say your racket has been stolen from you, Miss Oakes. Are you absolutely sure that this is so? Might it not have been misplaced or taken away in error?"

"No, Doctor. For a letter addressed to me was delivered to the Savoy desk this morning by a pageboy who handed in over with my empty racket case and immediately left. Before I show it to you, I beg your assurance that you will keep its contents completely confidential. Even the mere fact of my having received it would cause a terrible scandal."

"How could that possibly be?" I asked.

"Read it and you will find out for yourself, for surely you will never have seen a more infamous document, not in any of the nefarious criminal cases you have chronicled as Mr Sherlock Holmes’ companion!"

Surprised by the openly displayed intensity of her emotions, I picked up the letter. I was written on a single sheet of fine quality but unheaded writing paper with a well shaped nib and neatly blotted:

My Dear Miss Oakes,

Or may I take the liberty of calling you Maude? For I hope we shall be much better acquainted by and by. I would indeed wish us to be friends, and as a friend it is my pleasure to return to you your racket case, proving that I have possession of your Mullard, which, I am happy to assure you, is unharmed.

Naturally, as a patriotic Englishman, it is my dearest wish that your racket should also be returned to you forthwith so you may win the All England Championship. However, being also a man, and perhaps your greatest admirer, I claim the privilege of returning your property to you personally. Be on platform number six at Euston station at three o'clock this afternoon. You will be approached and show a playing card, the Ace of Hearts. Without any hesitation you will follow the person who shows you the card and obey any instructions he or she gives you. By a roundabout route you will be brought to me and your racket handed back to you.

However, before the transaction is complete, I shall claim my reward. As a keen photographer I have long desired to capture your image, preferably holding your racket aloft. But what would make the photograph perfect would be for you to pose for me wearing nothing but you're playing boots and your tennis cap. That would indeed be a picture worth the taking.

If you genuinely desire to have your racket returned, and if you are willing to grant me the favor I have asked for, be at Euston station at three o'clock. Should you be unwise enough to involve the police in this matter, be aware that the agent who meets you at the station will be completely unable to help the force to identify or locate me. Furthermore, any such action will result in the immediate destruction of your precious racket,

Your most obedient servant,

An Ardent Admirer

My hand shook with outrage as I read this madman's letter. Indeed, I was so angry that I could find no words at first to express my feelings, but could only express them in lashing at the footstool with my stick, nearly hitting my own foot as I did so. I suppose it was something of a comical performance, but rarely in my life had I felt so angry as I spluttered and struck out in ineffectual rage at the furniture.

"Blaggardly, Caddish! An affront to civilized society! Despicable!"

As I sank back into my chair there came an urgent knocking on the door: "Doctor! Doctor! Are you alright?" Mrs Hudson was clearly worried that I might have suffered from some kind of seizure.

With considerable effort I managed to calm my outraged sensibilities to some degree.

"I'm well enough, thank you." I called out to reassure my anxious landlady. "Nothing for you to worry about, Mrs Hudson."

I waited until I had heard the worthy landlady's footsteps go back down the staircase before I could trust myself to speak.

"You are quite right, Miss Oakes. I have never, never, in all my years of dealing with the criminal classes, come across anything so flagrantly in denial of all standards of human decency. Equally certainly, your name must never be linked with this madman's ravings. I suggest you burn this letter immediately."

Miss Oakes pursed her lips, as if in doubt about my advice.

"Might it not be better to keep it in case it contains some clue as to the origin? You see, Doctor, I have had time to think on my journey here and I wonder if this is perhaps some kind of a trick designed to unsettle me even more than the loss of my racket. It may be that whoever penned this . . . communication is not in fact a madman but a student of psychology intent on completely destroying the last shreds of my concentration before tomorrow's match."

"By Jove, you could be right," I admitted. "But it would take a mind of complete depravity to conceive such a plan. Were you committed to playing a French opponent the situation might possibly be as you postulate."

"But surely no American would ever stoop so low?"

"Hmmm... No, I doubt it, Miss Oakes. Certainly they have their baser moments, but with the Americans it's almost always money which brings out the worst in them, and that can hardly apply here. Not even the most avaricious Yankee sharp can ever hope to make any money out of respectable sporting activities, least of all in such a genteel pursuit as tennis. No, I believe this letter to come from the source it indicates, some foul creature so utterly besotted by his bestial desires that he imagines you might possibly consent to do as he bids you to."

Miss Oakes stared at me with a directness and a force in those vivid blue eyes which quite disconcerted me: "And yet I must consider the alternatives. Imagine the prospect of a Wimbledon Trophy being taken ashore at New York and borne in triumph through the streets. It would be like a Roman Triumph! Why, I might as well be dragged along Broadway in a cage as if I were a captured barbarian princess being taken as a prize to Caesar."

"Come, come, Miss Oakes, you exaggerate, surely? After all, you would not be there but here, in your own country."

"Yes, here in a country in which all my previous successes would have been turned to ashes in my mouth. A country in which I would hereafter be pitied at best and regarded as almost a traitoress by others. No, I will not submit to that fate without a desperate struggle, no matter what sacrifices I may be called upon to make."

I tried to lead her back to the path of sanity.

"Miss Oakes, a moment's quiet thought must indicate to you that any idea of actually following the instructions in this foul letter would lead you to a position in which you could be totally compromised. Such a rash course of action might mean being forcibly deprived of a treasure worth far more to a decent girl than any sporting trophy."

Those curiously bright eyes seemed even bluer than the summer sky outside as they continued to gaze upon me: "You are referring to my virginity, Doctor Watson?"

Never in all my years of medical practice had any young gal spoken to me with such directness. Certainly, never before had I found myself discussing such delicate matters with a blush on my own cheek and none on my patient's fair features. Yet Miss Oakes seemed quite unperturbed as she laid out the position with a directness which would have taken a female bargee aback.

"Do not regard me as a wanton, Doctor, I beg you. For I have no intention of tamely submitting to this devil's bargain. Nor will I involve the official police in such a delicate matter. I am resolved to deal with it myself. I am as strong as many a man and can move faster than most. And in this matter I have every right and justification to do whatever I must to achieve the return of my property. I intend to go to Euston station and go wherever I am directed to. But I shall carry a concealed weapon upon my person and I hope to be able to use it to force this reprobate into handing back my Mullard and then allowing me to depart without let or hindrance."

"My dear Miss Oakes! This is the spirit that won the Empire!"

Even my old heart beat faster with uncontrollable admiration as I gazed at this perfect example of English womanhood, this divine mixture of physical perfection and ardent spirit. No wonder we bred the finest stock in the world with such dams.

Indeed, dear reader, could anybody blame me if for once I regretted my everyday humdrum existence and wished for some magical spirit to appear bringing me gifts of grand titles and a great estate. For, in a moment of madness, I could not help but think of Adeline de Horsey, one of the most beautiful women of her generation, a girl who could speak fluently in five languages and had written an operatic score at the age of fifteen. How impossible it had seemed to all of society that, in the prime of her life, Adeline should have chosen to marry that brainless, womanizing buffoon the Earl of Cardigan.

Yet it had happened. Somehow a girl of her shining talents had managed to fall in love with an old dog over sixty years old, a rancid ancient libertine carrying the sacrificed souls of the Light Brigade forever on his conscience, not to mention the miseries of many seduced and abandoned young girls. If such a thoroughly undeserving man of mature years had succeeded in wooing a younger girl of great abilities, might not another older gentleman of greater moral worth also dare to dream?

Well, of course he couldn't. Even as a peer of the realm Cardigan had had to wait until his first wife had died before he could propose marriage to Adeline. And in his seventies the Earl had still been one of the finest riders to hounds in England, retaining the figure and bearing of a Light Dragoon into old age, whereas I could hardly drag my overweight and gout ridden frame out of my chair. 'Doctor, cure thyself' I thought in a spat of bitter regret for time past. The game was no longer afoot for James Watson.

It was the voice of Miss Oakes which brought me back to my senses.

"So, you see, Doctor, perhaps you can assist me even without Mr Holmes’ presence. Surely you must retain some trophies from the many cases you have been involved in together? Is there in your possession such a thing as a small pistol which I might be able to conceal upon me?"

Sadly, I had to shake my head. I knew of no such item being on the premises. It was true that there were many remarkable souvenirs stowed away in various nooks and crannies of 221B Baker Street but none of them of the kind that Miss Oakes was seeking. For one fleeting second I considered giving her a vial of vitriol to use if necessary, but it was a thought which passed away in a shudder of horror as I recalled the dissolved remains of Baron Gruner's face after that hellcat Kitty Winter had taken her revenge upon him with a glassful of acid. No, no human being with any hope of salvation could suggest or encourage the use of vitriol on any living creature, no matter what the circumstances.

Then, when I was on the very point of confessing my inability to help my fair guest in any way, inspiration not only tapped me on the shoulder but fairly shouted in my ear that I was a confounded fool not to have realized before what I must do. I hammered on the floor with my stick and called out in such force as to bring Mrs Hudson up the stairs in a flash and to cause  to stare in astonishment at me.

"Mrs Hudson! Mrs Hudson! I want you to send for Wiggins immediately. You know where he is to be found nowadays?"

"Wiggins, Doctor? Of course I do, at his place of business in Coneysale Road, not five minutes away by cab."

"Then I desire you to go into the street, hail the first hansom you can find and go to Coneysale Road immediately. My compliments to Wiggins and I have the most urgent need of his immediate attendance here. No matter what else he may be doing, this matter if of more importance. You understand, Mrs Hudson, of prior importance."

She curtsied to show her understanding and eagerness to act as my Mercury: "I'll get my bonnet and be on my way in two shakes of a lamb's tail, Doctor."

Miss Oakes's brows were still furrowed with curiosity as Mrs Hudson retreated down the staircase again.

"Doctor, pray tell me, who is this Wiggins?"

"Why, Miss Oakes, when I first met him he was nothing more than a dirty little Street Arab. That was long ago, when I first came here to share these lodgings with Holmes.  But even then my friend had already organized the gang of urchins he called the Baker Street Irregulars. Wiggins was their leader and I first met him and the other Irregulars when Holmes called them in to help him search the Thames for Mordecai Smith's steam yacht, the Aurora."

My memories vaulted back to that dark night, the swirl of foam under the Aurora's stern, the pounding of the engine of the police launch as Holmes raged at the vessel's delay in overtaking our prey, the swirling sparks dancing away in the wind betwixt the white funnel smoke and the river's black water. In the end we'd driven the Aurora ashore on Plumstead Marshes with a murderous native dwarf lying dead upon the deck and a one legged madman making a futile effort to escape by leaping overboard, only to get his wooden leg hopelessly stuck in the deep mud. But what we didn't know then was that Jonathan Small had already had the last laugh in the affair, nor that we'd left a trail of Indian gems worth half a million pounds behind us on the bottom of the Thames to mark the course of the five mile chase.

"Wiggins, Doctor. You were telling me about this Wiggins," Miss Oakes reminded me.

"Oh, I'm sorry... an old man's dreams, I'm afraid. Yes, Wiggins was the leader of the Irregulars then, by virtue of his energy and cleverness and has since gone on to lift himself up in the world by his bootstraps, as the saying is. Which is very good work indeed for a boy who owned no boots or shoes to begin with. Holmes provided money for him to learn to read and write and then to set himself up in his own business, at which he has proved remarkably successful. Indeed, he is still only eighteen or nineteen, I believe, and yet his agency employs some dozen people now."

"Really, that does sound remarkable, Doctor," Miss Oakes agreed. "But what is his business and why do you wish to summon him here so urgently?"

I smiled at my own stupidity: "Of course, I should have said. As it happens, Wiggins has traded very successfully on the public attention he has received from my accounts of Holmes’ cases. He announced to the world that anyone clever enough to help the great Sherlock Holmes must be worthy of hire as a private investigator in his own right, and a very plausible argument it has proven. The Wiggins Investigation Agency has gone from strength to strength since its founding."

"Indeed. But surely it could not have continued to be a success if this Mr Wiggins had not been good at his work?" Miss Oakes asked shrewdly.

"That is so. Even as a child Wiggins had great abilities and he certainly did learn much in assisting Holmes in many cases. Indeed, one of the first thing he did on his own account was to form another band of irregulars to work for him as he himself had led Holmes' own band of urchins. With the great man out of the country, I can think of no better course of action than to seek Wiggins' advice as the most immediate and satisfactory substitute."

I paused and then realized how difficult a position I had placed my guest in.

"Of course, Miss Oakes, no doubt you would wish to leave now. It would be intensely embarrassing for you to be present whilst another male reads the contents of this evil letter."

Again those eyes, aimed at me as unwaveringly as Afghan musket barrels: "No, Doctor, with your permission I will stay. This matter is too important for me to worry overmuch about such niceties."

"Very well, Miss Oakes."

Over the years I have chronicled Holmes' cases some remarkable examples of untypical female behavior had come my way. Mrs Maria Gibson, for example, who had blown out her own brains after using them to arrange a suicide which would see her rival in love hung for murdering Mrs Maria Gibson: Mrs Burnett, who had been prepared to live for years in the dreadful household of the Tiger of San Pedro in order to have her widow's revenge, and, on a lighter note, perhaps, the unforgettable Hatty Doran, who had run away from her own wedding reception as Lady St. Simon and had turned up again the following day, bright and cheerful, as the lawfully married Mrs Hay Moulton.

It would hardly be fair to classify Miss Oakes as belonging in such wayward company and yet, with every gram of scrupulous fairness towards her, I could not help but feel that she seemed oddly complacent over the prospect of Wiggins reading this obscene proposal in her presence. It even seemed as if she might be finding some hint of perverse pleasure at the thought.

I struggled to free myself of such unworthy suspicions, and glad I was to hear the crack of a cab driver's whip and the clatter of hooves through the opened window. Miss Oakes glanced in that direction, half rising from the sofa: "May I..."

"Of course."

She rose, walked to the window and looked down into Baker Street. "Why, is that Mr Wiggins, Doctor? The handsome well set up young man with a fair moustache? It must be he because Mrs Hudson is also getting out of the cab. She must indeed have hurried to Coneysale road because her complexion still seems most flushed and agitated."

"That sounds like Wiggins," I agreed, and was proved correct in scarcely a moment as somebody moved quickly up the staircase and knocked sharply on the door. At my invitation the door opened and Wiggins strode in.

It had been some time since our last meeting and once again I was astonished at his capacity for continuing self improvement. Wiggins' style of dress had matured from an everyday shop clerk grey to a fawn suit with matching waistcoat and a ruffled choker set off with a diamond headed tie pin, every inch and every seam of his attire perfectly cut and suitable for display at the most fashionable addresses in London. As for the wearer of this excellently tailored apparel, he seemed to have grown taller and developed an even more powerful physique in the arms and chest, presumably through much exercise with Indian clubs or similar bodily strengthening exercises.

It was hard to believe that this swaggering man of style had once been the same little boy who had trailed mud from the gutter across Mrs Hudson's carpets with his bare feet. It was even harder to believe that the same woman was now holding the door open for him and quite unnecessarily laying a hand on his arm to encourage him to enter.

That seemed like rather strange behavior on the part of our normally very formally behaved landlady, especially as she was still red faced and apparently short of breath. It seemed odd that she had not been able to regain her composure whilst riding in the cab, and even odder was the look on her face as she gazed up at Wiggins' features, apparently enthralled by them for some reason. This seemed strange, as was the obvious reluctance with which she finally released our visitor's sleeve.

"Thank you, Mrs Hudson."

It was like ordering a water spaniel to let go of a shot duck. For a few moments I thought Mrs Hudson would never take her leave. Using the keen deductive capabilities I had learned from Holmes I concluded that the good lady was suffering from an attack of acute embarrassment, for one button on the front of her shirt had somehow fallen off and another had been put back through the wrong button hole, causing a great crease in the white material already stretched so tightly across her matronly shape. Perhaps Wiggins had drawn her attention to this matter in the privacy of the cab on their way over. That might well explain her flushed cheeks and deep breathing.

"Don't worry, Mrs Hudson," Wiggins said. "I'll be down by and by to see to your parrot."

"Her parrot?" I asked, in surprise.

"Why yes, Mrs Hudson's parrot seems down in the beak, or so I've heard," he answered in jest. "But I've told Mrs Hudson that I'll stop by later and show her where it needs some deep scratching. That'll soon get it squawking loud enough for all the house to hear."

He winked at Mrs Hudson, her face darkened into a beetroot red in color and she scuttled back down the staircase with one hand clamped around her mouth. If not for the other matters pressing on me I would have followed our worthy landlady and inquired if something was unduly exciting her constitution. As it was I turned back into the room and found Wiggins bending low over Miss Oakes's hand as he raised it to his lips.

A damned foreigner's trick I thought, and one that no decent Englishman should be employing, even one who had so many deficiencies in his upbringing to make good. Though it seemed that Maude had no objection to Wiggins' cavalier style of introducing himself. Her head was half lowered but her look was as sharp and direct upon him as it had been upon me -- though then her eyelids had not fluttered as they were now doing. Indeed, I might even have thought that Miss Oakes was flirting with the young man, though that was impossible of course, as she was of a far superior social class. Even so, I was surprised how little Cockney accent remained in Wiggins' speech.

"This is indeed an honor, Miss Oakes, to make your acquaintance. When Mrs Hudson said that Miss Maude Oakes was here and in need of help I came as quickly as I could."

Maude's lips seemed to be drawing into a smile she couldn't suppress: "But you had enough time to discuss Mrs Hudson's parrot with her on the way back?"

"Oh, yes, I sometimes stop by of an evening at Mrs Hudson's and ask her if she wants a helping hand with her bird of paradise."

Maude flushed and clapped her hand to her mouth in exactly the same way as Mrs Hudson had done. Wiggins seemed to have this strange effect on both women of inducing near fits with a few commonplace words. Why this should be I couldn't fathom. But he continued speaking as if he'd noticed nothing unusual.

"Of course it's something of a trade secret, what I do, Miss Oakes. But if you was to be standing outside her door and listening when I'm rustling the feathers inside, well, you'd be amazed at some of the noises that parrot makes. You might think it was almost human."

Maude now appeared to be having great difficulty in repressing a gust of laughter, even though Wiggins' words seemed a poor jest to me and a waste of time in pointless conversation. Sometimes I can't understand the younger generation at all.

"Never mind about parrots, Wiggins," I said sharply. "Let me explain why I've sent for you."

In a few brisk words I gave Wiggins the same details that Miss Oakes had given me about the loss of her racket and the absolute necessity of recovering it before the Wimbledon Finals match. Then, reluctantly, but at Miss Oakes's nod of approval, I gave him the letter to read.

I would have expected the lady to have averted her attention from Wiggins as he perused the foul warrant for her humiliation, but no. Although she kept her head lowered she continued to glance up at him in a coquettish style, as though to judge his reaction to the suggestion that she be forced to pose au naturel in front of a photographic apparatus. For a moment of time his eyes did lift to hers. But then Wiggins was nodding his head in understanding and talking in a brisk and business like way.

"Well, Doctor, if what it says here is true, then there's no use in nabbing this go-between at Euston, for he or she will not be able to tell us where to find the miscreant who wrote this letter. Which means that the only alternative is to follow Miss Oakes to wherever she's taken and then to rescue her and her racket."

"Yes," I agreed. "That's the matter, in a nutshell. Can it be done?"

"Hmmm, perhaps." Wiggins paced up and down, occasionally glancing at Maude as he did so. "I've a good team, upwards of twenty if I turn them all out. The deuce of it is that Euston has so many ways in and out, especially for the knowing, and there's always such a press of people around. So maybe we should try something else as well, for I've had this problem before, and solved it pretty neatly."

"In what way?" I asked.

"Why it was a case of a young lady who feared she was going to abducted and forced into a violation of her honor by an older man who'd become besotted with her. I put two of my girls with her twenty four hours a day, as bodyguards you might say, but things went beyond anything they were expecting when they were surrounded by a gang of thugs with drawn pistols. Into a covered wagon they were bundled, still at pistol point and taken to a house in Brixham. They locked my girls up in separate rooms, no windows, bars on the doors, and thought no more about them while the girl they were supposed to be guarding was plied with champagne and lying promises by the lecherous old devil who'd arranged the kidnapping."

"My goodness, can such things really happen?" Maude asked him.

"Oh, certainly, Miss Oakes," Wiggins confirmed. "Why, I could tell you stories... but never mind. So, as I was saying, my two girls, Angel and Christina, there they were, in different rooms, each with a pistol tucked in her garter and nothing to be done with them. But I hadn't spent so much time with Mr Holmes without learning something and my gals had another trick up their skirts, so to speak."

Wiggins saw the disapproving look on my face and seemed suitably embarrassed: "Sorry, Doctor, just my little joke, you understand. But, Doctor, you'll remember the time that Mr Holmes needed to find out where that cunning vixen Irene Adler had hidden something he badly wanted to find? You remember how he got himself smuggled into her house and what you were asked to do afterwards?"

"Of course," I said. "Holmes arranged for me to throw a plumber's smoke rocket through an open window. Then he began shouting fire as the smoke spread and Miss Adler ran to retrieve the most valuable item in the house from its hiding place -- and the most valuable item in her possession was the compromising picture of herself with the Crown Prince of . . .  well, no matter which Prince it was."

"Exactly, Doctor, exactly," Wiggins said. "I never forgot that little trick, so I arranged to have a secret pocket sewn in each of my girl’s bustles with a smoke rocket in each one. There was a fireplace in each room and the girls both knew what to do as soon as they were left alone. They lit their rockets, dropped them in the fireplaces, stuffed the fireplaces with carpets to keep from suffocating from the smoke and waited for the fire brigade to arrive to put out the chimney fires. As soon as they heard the fire wagon bells ringing and fists banging on the front door they began firing off their pistols, screaming and blowing police whistles. Of course the firemen cut the doors down with their axes to find out what was afoot, with the police not far behind, and everything was soon settled in fine style."

"Good gracious, how clever, Mr Wiggins," Miss Oakes said admiringly. "Are you suggesting that I should also carry a pistol and one of these pocket rockets?"

"Why, I'm sure I'd be happy to give you a pocket rocket whenever you like, Miss Oakes." Wiggins said gravely and again I noticed a quiver in my fair guest's frame as she struggled to contain her emotions. No doubt she was, like Mrs Hudson, embarrassed by her circumstances. "But perhaps I can give you better than that to take along with you."

"What do you mean, exactly, Wiggins?" I asked.

"I'm thinking aloud, Doctor," Wiggins answered me, his brows knitted in concentration. "It's like I've said before, I'm worried that this person who's to collect Miss Maude might somehow give us the slip at a busy place like Euston station. I'm wondering if I should send Angel and Christine along with Miss Maude to the station as an extra precaution. She can say to whoever meets her that she's prepared to let her photograph be taken but she wants the girls to come along as chaperones, as you might say."

Miss Oakes leaned forward in keen interest at hearing Wiggins' suggestion: "Oh, that does sound like a good idea. But the letter says I must go alone. Do you think I'll still be approached if I have two other girls with me?"

Wiggins rubbed his chin: "That's what I don't know, Miss Maude, but if I was a lackey charged with such a task I think I would not stand high in my employer's estimation if I found you waiting as agreed and didn't bring you back simply because of two other girls being with you. After all, they couldn't be the peelers, could they, because there's no such thing as female police officers, thank the Lord."

He grinned at both of us at such an impossible idea and then became serious again.

"Look, Miss Maude, if this cove who sent you the letter only wants a photo then he won't mind two more females being there. And if he's got worse planned for you, then the more the merrier, hey? No point in dwelling on such details but think of it this way. You send a servant out to buy a loaf of bread and he comes back with the loaf and two free ones as well. Well, wouldn't that servant think he'd done well and deserved praise for bringing in the extra rations? I judge that's how your collector will think and he'll let the girls come with you rather than go back to his master empty handed."

Miss Oakes nodded eagerly to show her understanding while I pondered over Wiggins’ words.

"But what instructions will you give your girls, Wiggins?"

"Well, Doctor, in the first place, to help us follow the party. There's tricks they can use. A piece of colored chalk hidden in the toe of a shoe lets you put marks on the ground to leave a trail. Very useful long skirts are for concealing that. And the girls have a notepad of green paper hanging inside their skirts with a slit in the sides to reach through, and a pencil hanging there as well, so they can write an address on the paper once they've heard it. They've learned to do that with their hands inside their skirts though it's taken them a deal of time to get the knack of it."

"For what purpose?

"Why, say they're being taken away in a cab with some of my irregulars tagging behind. Once they've heard the address they can write it down without being seen, crumple up the paper and then generally find a way of dropping it out of the cab. My lads notice that scrap of green paper, being it's such an unusual color, they read the address and then it doesn't matter if they lose the cab in the traffic, for they know where it's going."

"That's clever, Wiggins, clever," I admitted. "But what if the worse should occur and Miss Maude and your young ladies should be spirited away and lost touch with completely?"

Wiggins spread his hands apart as if making a good natured concession of a temporary check.

"Then perhaps the smoke rocket trick will work again, Doctor. And if all else fails Christina and Angel will have their pistols ready and loaded as final arguments."

"In their garter belts Mr Wiggins?" Maude asked.

He grinned: "In a manner of speaking, Miss Maude. I told you about the slits in their skirts so they can reach inside them to write a note in secret. Well, the girls each have a holster sewn onto their corsets, and they can reach in through the same slits in their skirts and produce a loaded gun in a flash. That's a trick which usually takes the villains by surprise."

"But would they be prepared to use the firearms if necessary?" I asked. "After all, they are only females."

"Bless you, doctor," Wiggins said cheerfully, "Angel and Chrissy were brought up in the docks around Wapping. They'd blow up Parliament for me if I promised them a guinea apiece and a bottle of gin to share afterwards. Were you to look at their bonnets closely you'd find each of the little demons has got a cut throat razor blade sewn into the brim. Some sailors who pressed the chase too closely on that pair have gone back aboard with more stitches in their faces than in their sails."

"Good gracious," Miss Watson responded. "They seem like useful companions to have. But what about me? Can I also take a pistol with me?"

Wiggins chuckled and held up a warning finger: "Ah, it takes a while how to deal comfortably with a loaded pistol, Miss Maude. Accidents can happen very easily. The last thing we'd want is for you to be having a sudden explosion going off in your underclothing."

This time I was almost sure that Miss Oakes was on the verge of hysteria as she bent forward with her shoulders shaking. Yet when I offered my assistance she waved me away and tapped at her throat as if clearing it from a coughing attack.

"No, Miss Maude," Wiggins continued. "Pistols are fearfully dangerous things to be carried around unless you've been trained to them. But if you were to have an empty gun you couldn't do yourself any harm with that, and any blaggard you point it at won't know it's empty. Of course you'd have to come back to my office for the girls to fit you up with a holster."

"A holster? Sewn onto my corsets?"

"Oh, I think we might have one in your size already. One of our special sets of ladies' undergarments I mean. The girls will find you somewhere you can use as a fitting room. And they can tell you some of the tricks of their line of work before we go out this afternoon."

This was all happening far too hastily for my peace of mind.

"Wait a moment, Wiggins" I said. "I don't like this at all. To put Miss Oakes in danger merely because of a stolen tennis racket still seems to me to be the height of foolishness. Miss Maude, I beg of you, please reconsider the whole matter and simply reconcile yourself to playing with a new racket."

She shook her head and then stood up as straight backed with pride as a British Grenadier under fire: "No, Doctor, I thank you for your concern and for your help but I am determined to go ahead with this venture. I'm sure I can do no better than place myself in Mr Wiggins' capable hands."

"And very welcome you'll be in them, I'm sure, Miss Maude," Wiggins answered heartily. I thought for a second I saw him wink at her as he spoke but I must have been mistaken. He would never have dared to be so familiar with a well bred client.

"Very well," I conceded. "If that is your decision, Miss Maude, I can only applaud your courage and wish you God speed. Wiggins, is there anything I can do to help?"

"Why, no, Doctor, I don't think so, not at the moment. But if you were to stay here I'd know where to send for you if required."

"Very well. The best of luck to both of you."

I felt desperately ill used by circumstances as the pair of them left. Both young, strong determined, ready for anything. And all I was fit for was to doze beside the fireside like a rheumatic old blood hound. Curse this gout!

Yet there is one odd circumstance about that meeting I still have to recount. For as he was leaving Wiggins suddenly noticed my top hat on the stand and turned back to me.

"Doctor, could I ask a favor and beg for the loan of your stethoscope."

"Good Lord, what do you want that for?" I asked.

"It's for a purpose I can't explain now. But I'll see you get it back very soon."

"Very well, go ahead and take it."

Wiggins picked up my hat and removed the stethoscope from its usual carrying place inside the crown.

"Thank you, Doctor."

The door closed and I sat alone by the fireplace again, waiting to hear the sound of Wiggins' hail for a cab coming through the opened window. Oddly, though, after about five minutes I still hadn't heard his voice and I wondered if their departure had been delayed for some reason. I rose, hobbled to the door and opened it. And down below I heard some odd high pitched cries, almost human in tone.

'Not that confounded parrot?' I thought to myself. 'Wiggins is surely not wasting his time with Mrs Hudson's parrot when matters are so urgent?'

Yet there were certainly some strange noises coming from below, sounding almost like a woman in distress. I went down the staircase a few steps and leaned over to look down into the hall. And there I saw a most unexpected sight. Miss Oakes was standing by Mrs Hudson's door listening to the squawking sounds coming from the other side of the door -- not only listening, but with the stethoscope horns in her ears and the other end of the tube pressed flat against the door. Clearly she could thus overhear in great detail what was occurring in the room and she seemed totally preoccupied in her eavesdropping. In fact her face was flushed scarlet, her lips were wide open and her eyes seemed to be on the verge of bulging out of her head.

I could make nothing of this. If Maude was so interested in whatever Wiggins was doing with Mrs Hudson's parrot, surely she could have entered the room with him? And what was Wiggins thinking of to leave his client waiting in the hall while he played the part of an amateur vet with a moody macaw? That was no way to run a business.

Above all, though, I could make no sense of Maude's behavior. What on earth could Wiggins be doing inside Mrs Hudson's room that could have such an affect on the young lady? And then my astonishment became complete as I saw Miss Oakes kneel down with the stethoscope still at her ears and then place her eye against the keyhole of the door.

Well, here was a mystery that Holmes himself might have trouble in solving. It would certainly be a very difficult situation if Mrs Hudson opened the door to find Maude seemingly intent on spying into her quarters. And all because of a parrot! Which had now started calling out in a way which sounded like some fragment of human speech screeched out over and over again: two words, in fact. I couldn't quite catch the first one but the second sounded like "Me". "Duck me" or "Buck me", or some similar piece of nonsense that the bird must have picked up somewhere.

Amazing creatures, parrots, to imitate a woman's voice so well, though not worthy of the attention that Maude was giving to this specimen. Her whole posture was of total fixation on the sounds coming through the stethoscope and on whatever she was glimpsing through the keyhole. Truth to tell, I thought rather badly of Wiggins for letting Maude have the use of instrument. It was, after all, a medical device and therefore meant to be used by doctors, not women.

I could only conclude that there must be some good reason for the girl's behavior, odd as it presently appeared. After all, how many times had I seen Sherlock Holmes behave in an entirely inexplicable manner, only to discover afterwards that he'd had excellent reasons for doing so? This must be another such mystery which I would ask Wiggins to explain to me when next we met.

I therefore returned quietly to my room and pondered over the strange twist of fate which had come my way that morning. Strange, indeed, and yet all I could do to was to brood the afternoon away in my armchair whilst the game was afoot. If only Holmes was here!

Yet perhaps he was, in spirit at least, because I presently found myself feeling like Holmes himself at the prospect of a new case unfolding. Ennui replaced by energy, weariness by well being, a racing of the blood akin to an old soldier's response to a regimental band marching past. Where the prospect of action had Holmes pacing the rooms like a caged tiger I was affected to a much lesser but altogether beneficial degree, to the extent that my attack of gout faded away as quickly as it had come. I can offer no medical reason for this transformation but I was certain it was the excitement of the case and the thrill of the chase which was the stimulus for my sudden recovery. At any event, by the early afternoon I was walking around the rooms of 221B with complete ease.

The question was, what use should I make of this newly granted freedom? I had implied to Wiggins that I would remain at Baker Street for the afternoon, but circumstances alter cases. My circumstances had changed, I was able to walk again and it seemed intolerable to remain cooped up whilst the case was unfolding. Neither did there seem much point in going around to Wiggins' office merely to wait there for news.

No, I would go to Euston Station, I would be on platform six at three o'clock and serve as another pair of eyes. Whoever Mr 'Ardent Admirer' was he could have no idea that Miss Oakes had come to Sherlock Holmes' consulting rooms and even if he did it was very unlikely that he or his servants would know me by sight. So I could be just another passenger on the platform. Wiggins' people would also be watching and they probably wouldn't know me either, nor I them, but it was no matter. If I saw anything that Wiggins should know about I could quickly get word to Coneysale Road. No, there was no reason why I no attend at the miscreant's planned rendezvous and watch matters unfold. No harm could come from that, provided I remained at a discreet distance.

Whether or not I should try to follow Maude and her companions if they were led away was a different matter. As eager as I was to do so I might get in the way of Wiggins' watchers and distract them from the job in hand. No matter how I turned the matter over in my mind I found that I could not change my decision on that score. The tracking must be left to the professionals, leaving me behind with my fingers crossed in hope of their success. The beginning and ending of my involvement in the hunt would be at Euston, and only there.

Well, so be it. No chance for Watson to play the role of a knight in shining armor rescuing the fair damsel in distress. Regrettable, though at least I would have something to tell Holmes about when he returned. Little enough, no doubt, compared to his exploits amongst the bandits of the Balkans, but each of us must live our lives as they are doled out to us, whether in full or sparse ration.

---

The clock at Euston station still lacked a few minutes to three o'clock as I made my way down platform six in an unusually warm and humid atmosphere. The strong sunlight remained undimmed by any passing clouds and the acres of glass panels overhead were acting something in the manner of a greenhouse. Those closest to this trapped heat were the pigeons sitting on the maze of sooty girders underneath the station roof, most of them preferring to doze rather than taking wing to forage for food scraps.

Far below their perches a great mass of mankind was behaving very differently, either bustling around in great energy or waiting impatiently for their scheduled conveyance. Indeed, any curious bird might have wondered what had made a normally busy concourse even busier. But it would taken a very perspicacious pigeon indeed to notice that so many family groups of Homo Sapiens had left their dwellings today, or that the reason for this might have been deduced from the small buckets and spades some of the younger members of the species were clutching.

On the other hand the railway company porters, perspicacious or not, knew very well that this was the height of the holiday season, and that every Briton and his family were making their annual pilgrimage to the seaside. Many tips were being offered and accepted for the prompt movement of bags and baggage as Londoners followed the rest of the nation on their march to the beaches. There the children would build their sand castles and the adults would paddle in the salt water, their yearly tribute to the element which provides our passage to that one quarter of the world's population fortunate enough to live under the civilizing influence of the British Empire.

And, of course, to reach the sea, a Londoner first has to catch a train. Which was why I was finding it easy to move along the platform without drawing attention to myself. Not only was it crowded, but it was crowded with Paters and Maters and their offspring clustered together in chattering groups, the parents struggling to keep their children and luggage from getting mixed up with the adjoining families. I therefore chose the tactic of slowly circling each group and thus remaining behind cover as I kept my eyes skinned for Miss Oakes. I did not wish her to see me if possible because such a change in arrangements might startle and confuse her. A tactic which I carried out with success, though not at all in the way I had anticipated.

A man walking past me briskly suddenly checked his steps like a wherry hitting a king wave, his head swinging over as sharply as a gybed stun'sl. And when I followed his gaze I was rather stunned myself. Three girls were standing in a small group on their own, no men, no porters, no baggage. All three of them were wearing pure white linen dresses embroidered with pink silk ribbons: on their heads were wide brimmed white hats, also beribboned and additionally decorated with pink flowers. In their hands the girls idly swung matching white and pink folded parasols. The whole effect would have been utterly charming even if the girls had not been what they were.

It was the one on the left I looked at first, and drew in my breath in appreciation, for she was tall and graceful with a figure that Reuben himself could have drawn inspiration from, full yet fine lined, and a joy to behold. Behind her proud head was a neat bun of blonde hair, her pleasant features carried a broad smile and even at my distance from the group I could sense her joy in the constant self awareness of her youth and beauty. Indeed, it was that unbounding essence of life in her which even an artist of genius could have only hinted at. My eyes moved across to her companion and my jaw, I'm sure, fell open in shock. For both of the girls was alike as two peas in a pod, alike in form and in face, even alike in the dab of freckles across both pert noses.

Twins! Twin sisters! And how odd that they should look so fashionable without being members of the upper classes. Which I was sure they were not, because such a matching pair of beauties would have certainly have featured in the pages of the society papers had their family any claim at all to public attention. I sought to see the features of the third white clad girl in the hope of gaining a clue as to their identity. For the moment, I freely admit, I had almost forgotten about Miss Oakes, as I tried to catch a glimpse of the face hidden behind the twins' hats.

Suddenly the tallest of the figures raised her head to look up at the platform clock, my view was unblocked and I was struck such a paralyzing blow of shock as must have befallen Lot's wife as she looked back at the destruction of Sodom. My search for Maude Oakes was over and I almost fell backwards onto a providentially empty bench seat, where I could both mop my brow and also hid my face behind the handkerchief as I tried to come to terms with the unexpected circumstances I had fallen into.

From Wiggins' descriptions of his girls I had imagined two gaunt, tangled hair drabs with shifty eyes wearing cast off clothing. Of course a moment's reflection would have led me to realize that the more attractive his agents, the better the chances of them being taken away with Maude. But even so, that the young detective could have produced twin sisters dressed in the height of fashion and looking like Duke's daughters was beyond my comprehension. And why the devil was Maude dressed in the same way as... hmm... yes, Angel and Chrissie? Why had the calico print brown dress she had worn at Baker Street been replaced with the same fashionable dresses as the sisters?

Well, one more quick glance was enough to answer that question. Because Angel and Chrissie were tall and good looking and blonde, and in those virginal white and pink dresses they could have charmed the Lord Chief Justice of England off his bench with the wink of a sparkling eye. But with Maude with them, in the same rig, it was as if all the golden Maidens of the Rhine had come to life together and to London for their spring outfits. As a trap to catch a libertine, a man who lusted after strapping young women like Maude, it was a trap with the best bait imaginable displayed inside its iron jaws. Perhaps the only thing which would appeal more to the depraved lusts of 'The Ardent Admirer' than Maude herself would be the opportunity to commit gross outrages on a pair of twin sisters held at his pleasure. If his messenger knew anything at all about his master's tastes he would know that much, and happily, thrice happily, take all the girls with him, as we hoped he would do.

'Wiggins... Wiggins!' I muttered under my breath and into my handkerchief.

I was expressing sentiments of both shock at the young detective’s brilliant insight into the criminal mind and his equally brilliant planning to capture the criminal himself. Even the great Holmes would need to take care in future, lest the Master find himself overtaken by the Pupil.

Therefore, it was with the highest degree of expectation that I continued to survey the scene, though keeping my face lowered against the small chance of Maude noticing me. Certainly she began looking around her with great intensity as the minute hand on the clock dragged itself around for the final circuit before marking three. But she never noticed me, and I saw no sign of anybody approaching except for three porters with a hand cart piled high with luggage. 

So high in fact that as one of them pushed the cart along the other two walked on either side and held on to the top layer of wicker baskets to prevent them from toppling off the cart. This was a very bothersome interruption at such a moment, but there was further annoyance yet as a small shunting locomotive in the green and gold colors of the London and North Eastern Railway came steaming down the side of the platform. Behind it was a single passenger coach, and a guard's van behind that, nothing else. On the destination board were the words: 'FOR PRIVATE USE ONLY'.

I snarled under my breath as I saw that the train driver was clearly intending to come to a halt at the very spot where the three girls were standing. Perhaps, I thought, he was under the impression that they were something to do with whoever had hired the private train. What a foul piece of luck, for such an unexpected turn of events might well frighten off the messenger we were waiting for. And, unbelievably, at the same moment as the passenger car stopped by the girls, the porters halted the luggage cart in front of them, cutting them off from my sight. I wondered what had made the confounded idiots stop there, of all places, and cursed all three of them as they all walked around to the far side of the cart. Perhaps the wheel on that side was working loose.

Yes, I confess it, I was not as quick as Holmes would have been in understanding what was happening. But I appeal to your own sense of reason, dear reader. A hired train and a gang of desperadoes disguised as railway porters -- who would have expected such resources from a mere filthy minded blackmailer? Certainly not I. Yet when I saw the tip of a parasol held aloft above the baskets on the cart and waved vigorously for a second or so it was enough to shake the scales from my eyes. For I was sure it was an alarm signal. Nor was it the only signal being given because the guard was already  waving his green flag at the locomotive and blowing his whistle to grant it permission to depart within mere seconds of its arrival.

I jumped up from the bench and rushed forward as the train's wheels began to turn. One glance behind the cart was enough to confirm my suspicions. Nobody was there, nobody at all and the coach door already closing. I was dumbfounded at what had happened, at how Wiggins' close laid surveillance plans had gone all a'gley so quickly. There was nobody in his organization who was in place to take a hand, nobody but myself. As the guard's van rolled past me I stepped onto the rear platform, to be confronted by an indignant railway official in full dress blackcloth uniform, gold braided hat and white side whiskers.

"Now then, sir, what game do you think you're a'playing at? I can have you taken up by the police for setting foot on this on this here van without permission."

"Guard, my name is Watson, Doctor John Watson. I'm the friend and confidant of Mr Sherlock Holmes, the well known consulting detective."

He surveyed me from boots to hat. A stout man with red cheeks behind his white whiskers and careful eyes finally matched by an equally careful nodding of his head.

"Why so, I believe you might be, sir. You certainly look like the pictures of Doctor Watson I've seen in the papers. Would you happen to have a card on you?"

I opened my card case and gave him one of my cards. He read it slowly, then looked up at me: "What brings you aboard my train then, Doctor?"

I found it difficult to reply, bearing in mind the need for absolute discretion about the case. Then I realized there was no need to admit any specific interest in the girls.

"Because I fear something may be amiss here, Guard. Did you not see three porters get into the coach just now with the three ladies who were waiting on the platform? How can that be?"

The guard smiled and shook his head: "Very smart of you to spot it, Doctor Watson, but I was warned in advance about those porters. They're not real porters at all, of course, just some young bloods who wanted to play a joke on their girls. The station master himself warned me about it while we were writing up my running orders."

"Indeed?" I queried. "Has Euston Station now become a music hall for the staging of pantomime shows?"

The Guard's smile was unshaken: "Why, Doctor, when you're dealing with people who can afford to run their own trains it often happens that you get some odd requests. I had a terrible time once with the Marquis of Gransby. He saw some mushrooms in a meadow from his train and nothing would do for it but that I must stop the train while he sent his cook out to pick them for breakfast. Stopped on a main line, mark you, with the Hasting Flyer coming up behind us at sixty miles an hour. He would have had me sacked if I'd refused, so I had to spin him a yarn that all the mushrooms in the area around were known to be deadly poisonous. Compared to that caper, this little prank with the young ladies is just water off a duck's back to me."

"I see. And who was it who ordered this train?"

The Guard shook his head: "I'm sorry, Doctor, I don't know. I didn't ask and the Station Master didn't tell me, even assuming he knew himself. Now, what's to be done with you? We've passed the station limits by now and we're not due for another stop until we reach our destination. I'm sure it was very public spirited of you to inquire about the ladies' welfare but if I stop at any of the stations enroute to drop you off we'll cause a lot of disruption to the company's running schedules. Better perhaps that you make the round trip with us and I'll return you to Euston nice and quietly with nobody the wiser. We're not going far at all."

The van was rolling from side to side as it went over a whole series of points, high cliffs of bluegray brick were closely abutting on either side of the small train and rows of houses perched above the cutting walls looked like pigeon lofts.

"Come inside, Doctor, it'll get draughty out here as we pick up speed."

The Guard ushered me through the door which gave admittance to the interior of his van, then stepped inside himself up to a writing stand. He consulted his pocket watch, dipped a pen in the inkwell on the stand and carefully made an entry into an opened journal set on the stand. I was irresistibly reminded of a ship's captain writing up his logbook on the bridge of a large steamer.

"What is our destination, then?" I asked him.

"Halton Manor, Doctor. Not above fifteen miles away. It used to be a gunpowder factory but it was closed up some years ago. Now there's just the old buildings and the branch line into the siding where they used to load the powder onto the trains. I only hope the points haven't rusted up, for I'm sure this is the first time any mainline traffic has been in there since the factory was shut."

"So what possible reason could anybody have for wanting to travel to such a place?"

The Guard shrugged: "I don't know, Doctor, but if the company hires out a train, it's only real concern is that the fee is paid. Where the customer wants to go to is up to him. Why, do you wish me to make some sort of investigation? I'd need some real proof of wrong doing, or it could cost me my job if I upset some high ranking peer who has paid a pile of golden sovereigns to hire this train."

I reflected on his words and tried to decide what to do for the best. On one hand I was very unhappy about the way things were shaping. "Ardent Admirer' was proving an artful dodger indeed. Of course it had always been a possibility that Maude could have been taken away from a railway station on a train, but following her onto a normal train would have been easy. This unexpected use of a private train smacked all too much of cleverness and considerable resources for my taste. On the other hand unless the journey was completed without interference there would be no chance for Maude to retrieve her racket.

"What's your name, Guard?"

"Protheroe, Doctor, James Protheroe."

"Well, Mr Protheroe, would it be possible to drop me off discreetly at this place, this Halton Manor, without the occupants of the coach seeing me?"

"Certainly, I think that would be possible, Doctor." I noticed a sudden gleam of excitement appear in his eyes. "And would you be wanting me to pass any kind of a message onto Mr Holmes afterwards? I've always been a great admirer of his, you understand."

Once again I marvelled at the almost overwhelming amount of interest the British public always showed in the affairs of Sherlock Holmes. But who could blame them? Certainly, not I, having devoted so much of my life to recording the great man's achievements because of my own fascination at his manifold accomplishments.

"Unfortunately, Mister Holmes is abroad at the moment on a most confidential mission," I explained. "But you may certainly send a telegram to some associates of mine the moment you return to Euston. Tell me, which is the closest station to Halton Manor and how far away is it?"

Protheroe stepped up to a finely detailed map on the van's bulkhead highlighting a web of metropolitan rail lines and placed his thumb up against it. "The nearest station to Halton Manor, Doctor? That would be Hathaway station, two miles closer to London on the down line."

"The down line?" I stood next to him to see where his thumb rested.

"All the lines with trains driving away from London on them are called down lines, all lines into London are up lines," Protheroe explained. "So after we run through Hathaway station, Halton Manor is two miles further on."

I examined the map. "This road, the Gravesend Road, it runs past Halton Manor and Hathaway?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"And trains run regularly today Euston to Hathaway?"

"Every thirty minutes, regular as clockwork, Doctor."

"And a party who wished to could bring bicycles with them on the train to Hathaway? In the Guard's van?"

"Certainly. For threepence extra each, of course."

"So the quickest way to Halton Manor from Euston is to take a train to Hathaway Station and then cycle the two miles further along the Gravesend Road?"

"That would be right, Doctor. Unless you was to travel on one of Professor Herr Von Zeppelin's airships." Mr Protheroe smiled at his own joke.

"Thank you, I'll write out the telegram now then, with your leave."

I was as quick as I could be in writing out the wire to be sent to Wiggins' office, alerting the young detective to the changed circumstances. I was sure that some of his watchers must have seen me board the train, and even if I wasn't known to any of them personally my description must have alerted their employer as to the identity of the civilian seen stepping onto the Guard's van. Thereafter Wiggins would certainly have remustered his forces at his offices, ready to respond as soon as possible to any message from me.

That was on the positive side of things. On the negative side, no help could possibly arrive for at least two hours, and, even worse, I had seen no reason to bring my old service revolver with me on a mere sight seeing trip. Oh well, in life as in medicine, one problem at a time. The problem at that moment was to form my letters legibly as I stood at the van's writing stand bracing myself against the swaying floor of the vehicle. It was difficult to judge its speed with only four small windows to look out of but I was sure we must have been travelling at quite fifty miles an hour.

I blotted the telegram, put in the Guard's pen back in the inkwell and gave him the paper and a sovereign for transmission costs: "As quickly as possible with this to the cable office please, Mr Protheroe, on your return to Euston."

"Of course, Doctor Watson." His eyes were more careful than ever. "But look here, Doctor, if you're really convinced there's some wrong doing going on, perhaps you should tell me about it.  After all, a man of your reputation and contacts isn't just an ordinary member of the public. I could order the driver to stop at Hathaway and then summon a member of the railway constabularly. If you feel that such action is necessary."

I reflected on his suggestion and then again. For two pins I would have done as Protheroe suggested. The only reasons I didn't was because I knew how much Maude wanted a chance to recover her racket and, far more importantly to my mind, the scandal which would surely sully her reputation if this matter were ever became public knowledge.

"No, thankee, Mr Protheroe. I need to follow this scent but it's not yet time to shout tallyho. What happens when we get to Halton Manor?"

"The siding is on a slight downgrade there, so we'll fly shunt. Half a mile away I'll put a touch of brakes on the van, the fireman will climb down and uncouple the coach from the engine, the engine will pull ahead and set the fireman down to throw over the points into Halton Manor and remove the derailer. He'll give me the all clear hand signal and coach and van will roll into the siding with my hands on the brake handle to control the speed. I'll bring us to a stand beside the old factory loading platform, apply the brakes on the coach and scotch the wheels, uncouple the van and then the engine will come in behind us, pick up the van and take it back to Euston after I've reset and padlocked the main line points for the straight again."

"I see..."

Well, to be truthful, I thought I had a general idea of what the Guard was talking about.

"So if I wanted to get off without anybody in the coach seeing me, what would you suggest?"

Mr Protheroe tugged at his mutton chop whiskers as he considered. "Well, Doctor, as I remember that siding, the platform comes to a dead stop at the mainline end. Were you to step over it you'd fall straight down for about five feet, like stepping off the top of a wall. When I stop the coach in the middle of the platform the further end of my van will just about be in line with that end of the platform. All you need do is to step down from the van and crouch yourself down to be out of sight from the coach and anybody crossing the platform."

"That sounds well enough."

"To start with, Doctor, to start with," the Guard continued, doubt in his voice. "But I don't know what may happen after that, not knowing what the parties in the coach intend to do, nor which direction they may move off in."

"Never mind about me, Mr Protheroe. I've had a fair amount of experience in such matters. No one will see me until I choose to display my presence."

"Very well, Doctor, if you say so. In any case we must be getting close to Halton Manor now. Better perhaps that you wait in here until I call you."

He went out onto the back platform of the van and left me to squint through one of the windows at a passing parade of back gardens in one of the respectable suburbs of north London. Twice we rattled over a bridge and the road underneath each of them, then through a station, groups of waiting people on the platform lifting their heads up from their opened newspapers to glance at this unscheduled bird of passage with its single coach and privileged passengers. Where they were standing in the open, the still high and bright sun cast their own foreshortened shadows at the watchers' feet. It also lit up the station sign -- "HATHAWAY (TWICKENHAM)". So not far to the siding now.

I suddenly felt extremely thirsty and noticed a small stove at one corner of the van with a kettle standing on it. The stove was unlit, but there was water in the kettle, and a tin mug hanging off a hook. I was sure that Mr Protheroe would have no objections to sparing me a mug of water, and so I helped myself. As I began drinking I felt a shuddering underfoot and heard some unearthly squealing noises as the guard began to tighten the van's brakes.

At first their application seemed to have little effect in reducing our velocity, and then the short train gave a kind of twitch and began to slow much more rapidly. I squinted through one of the windows but could see nothing of the locomotive from it because it was on the right of the van and the track was curving to the left.

A hasty movement across the van to the opposite window afforded me a clearer view and I was able to see that the small locomotive had already uncoupled from the passenger car and was now drawing ahead with the fireman clearly visible as he stood on the side steps of the coal tender. Then the track straightened out and I lost sight of the locomotive. The van brakes were still creaking away like an overloaded haywain's axles and we were now moving at no more than a fast horse trot. I suddenly recalled Mr Protheroe's remarks about the possibility of the points no longer being workable because of their infrequent use: would we, in that event, find ourselves running into the stopped locomotive?

Still, no doubt the railwaymen were used to dealing with such situations and were prepared for any eventuality. So I reassured myself until we rolled through another curve in the line and I saw the locomotive halted in an halo of smoke about two hundred yards ahead, with the fireman twenty yards or so closer to the approaching passenger car. One of his arms was held out straight from his shoulder and I hoped that this was an indication that everything was as it should be.

And so indeed it proved to be as the passenger car and guard's van changed direction on the points and rolled away from the main line at what was now a brisk walking pace. The whole manoeuvre seemed to me to be admirably timed and executed. I glanced out of the rear door of the van and saw Mr Protheroe leaning to his right as he looked down the line to the approaching platform. Standing before him was the round horizontal wheel which controlled the brake shoes. Evidently choosing his moment, he gave the wheel another quarter turn, the brakes began to squeal again and I smelt the aroma of scorching wood in the air. His head turned inwards and he observed my presence at the door.

"Only a hundred yards to go, Doctor, then you may descend," he said. "Nice and carefully, please, for these ballast stones are treacherous stuff to walk on if you're not used to them."

I nodded and gripped my walking stick as if I already had need of it. Protheroe seemed intent on judging the distance ahead. He slackened off the brake wheel a little to let van and car drift a few yards further on, then reapplied the wheel quickly, as hard on as he could turn it in a sudden burst of energy. The two coupled vehicles came to a complete halt as the last of their momentum was absorbed into the brakes, and the end of a railway platform was directly abutting the rear platform of the guards van when it finally came to a stand.

"Neat work, Mr Protheroe."

"Thankee, Doctor. Now I'll walk forward to secure the car. In the meantime you can get off whenever you're ready."

"Excellent, excellent. And you'll be as prompt as possible with that wire. Mr Protheroe?"

"No need to worry about that, Doctor," he reassured me. "It'll get sent as soon as it can be."

Which I was sure was so. Mr Protheroe was a  responsible man with a responsible job and could be trusted, of that I was certain. Now for my own task. As the guard set off down the train I descended on the other side, crouching as low as I could as I stepped off the van and into the shelter of the platform. Then I risked a quick look over the top of the platform at the passenger car. There was no sign of the people within it, no opened door nor window. It seemed likely that those inside preferred to remain discretely out of sight until the railway employees had left. So what was I to do? I examined the area that I now found myself in with a further series of cautious glances.

There was no building on the platform itself. In fact it was only a few steps wide, with the rusting remains of two cranes somewhat in the center and an access ramp in the very middle. Clearly, the procedure had been to bring two horses onto the platform to walk up and down it, thus drawing on the crane pulleys so they could lift barrels of gunpowder out of carts drawn up alongside the platform. The loaders would then rotate the cranes over the waiting railway cars, guide the horses backwards to sway the barrels down, and then repeat the process ad infinitum. There was a small bluestone building close to the unloading area, obviously once a clerk's office, though now long abandoned, with water stains in the rotting window frames. It seemed to be of no interest to me, or to anybody else.

This was a complete mystery to me. I had expected that the girls would have been picked up by a cab or a carriage to be conveyed to some private house, but there was no sign of such a thing. Perhaps it would appear as soon as the locomotive had departed. But where would it be hidden in the meantime? On the far side of the track was only an expanse of clinkers and rough ground between the rusting steel lines and the high wall which marked the limits of the old mill's grounds. Behind the weighman's office was a different story altogether though. There was a place which could have held a dozen carriages whilst keeping them completely out of sight.

The outer perimeter of this feature was marked by an inclined grassy slope about ten feet high which formed part of a circle of some hundred feet in radius, with one visible opening opposite the loading platform. Seen on the Sussex Downs a casual observer might well have taken it for one of the ancient barrows left by our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. But in this setting, and in this place, it told a different story to an ex-army doctor. Those raised earthworks marked a temporary storage magazine for the barrels of gunpowder waiting shipment, designed to protect the area around it from any accidental explosion, with the top deliberately left unroofed so that no tiles or beams could be blown aloft to fall into the suburban streets in the event of a detonation. Yes, that was certainly what it was and if there was a conveyance hidden hereabouts, that was were it would likely be hidden.

I felt the blood quicken in my veins at the thought. Could a coach really be waiting within the old magazine? A glance at the entrance was enough to show that it was ungated and of sufficient width -- as it had had to be, of course, to afford access to the mill wagons. So, yes, the transport the gang in the carriage were waiting for must indeed be hidden inside the magazine. I remembered Wiggins' words about how his girls had sometimes been able to leave clues as to where a hansom was bound for. Such an achievement was beyond me but if only I could get close enough to the vehicle I might be able to furnish an accurate enough description of it for Wiggins to locate it. After all, it was unlikely to be going far, and with a dozen hard pedalling cyclists available, once Wiggins and his party arrived, there must be a good chance of finding it again...

Well, a desperate chance perhaps, but this was a desperate affair. And if I could once get around the back of the magazine it should be easy enough to scramble up the sloping ramparts and peer over the edge of them, whilst secure in the knowledge that no one in the passenger car could see me. Which was all very well, but there was at least fifty yards of open space between the platform and the nearest part of the magazine wall where I would be hidden from sight of the carriage. How was I to cross that open space without being seen from the carriage windows?

A screech from behind almost caused me to jump up in surprise. For a second I thought I was back in Cawnpore with a male elephant in musk trampling down the regimental tents, broken tethering chains dragging in the dust behind it. In this case though it was another beast of burden making the noise, one made of iron and well under control. The locomotive had entered the siding behind us, giving a warning whistle blast as it approached the van. 

The fireman was riding at the very front, on the opposite side of the engine to me, his eyes fixed on the rear of the van and concentrating on judging the distance still to go as he gave hand signals to the driver. What immediately caught my attention was the reason that the fireman was on the opposite side -- it was because the wind was blowing from that side and the smoke from the locomotive's chimney was rolling along in reasonably thick clouds in more or less the direction I wished to go.

Here was a stroke of luck meant to be taken advantage of. As I braced my age stiffened knees for their best efforts the locomotive slowed down until the wheels were barely turning and then the fireman jumped nimbly to the ground, reaching in with a jemmy bar to position the coupling ring. As steel clanked upon steel his eyes lifted up a fraction to see my respectably dressed figure crouching down behind the platform. The whites of the eyes in the man's coal dust grimed face expanded with surprise in a way which might have been comical under other circumstances.

Alas though, if I am to remain completely truthful in this account, I must admit that I presented an equally bizarre spectacle for I could think of nothing better to do that to raise my fingers to my lips, as if adjuring the man to silence in some childish game of hide and seek. With the smoke now serving admirably to cover my movements I left the scene and trotted as quickly as possible past the clerk's office and on to the magazine. No doubt I left an animated conversation going on behind me between driver and fireman, and the prospect of an even more animated one when they began to speak to Mr Protheroe.

Certainly, though, had I had the time and opportunity, I would have been glad to provide generous gratuities to all the crew members for their efforts because the amount of smoke from such a small engine was quite impressive. A gently rolling cloud thick enough to make it unlikely that anybody in the passenger car could see me within it. Unfortunately, it was too thick for a few seconds too long, but not long enough.

The sequence of events seemed to conspire against me on all counts. In the first instance I clung too closely to the smoke to realise I was heading almost directly for the magazine entrance. Next, the smoke from the locomotive suddenly dwindled to almost nothing for some reason. Thirdly, and much worst, I saw that the doors on the passenger car had now opened and an en-masse disembarkation appeared to be occurring. 

In my suddenly exposed situation I realised that I must be spotted from the platform with seconds unless I could take cover, and the only place of concealment available was to scuttle through the magazine entrance into the sheltering walls. A matter of Scylla and Charybdis, for if Ardent Admirer and his coachman were indeed waiting inside the magazine, I would be rushing straight into their arms. But to stay out in the open would be equally disastrous.

So, I hobbled between the open gates at my best speed, struggling at the same moment to draw my pocket knife from my coat and open it. It was my intention, if I did find a waiting vehicle inside, to attempt to slash through the traces and to startle the horses into bolting. By such means I might hold up the attempted abduction of the girls until Wiggins and the rest of the rescue party hove into sight.

Imagine then, my astonishment at entering the confines of the walls and finding myself standing at one end of a tennis court laid out with neat white lines on the freshly mowed grass, a net stretched across the middle, and an umpire's high chair standing at one side.  My utter astonishment indeed, for there was something else about the scene in front of me which made it as strange a sight as I have ever witnessed. Which is not a statement to be taken lightly from someone who has seen a street beggar turned into a respectable businessman with a wipe of a sponge, the living and the dead sharing the same coffin and a university professor swarming up the ivory covered walls of his own house with the facility of an ape. 

Yet it is true. For there were some twenty people standing and sitting in groups along the left hand side of the court, and none of them moved a muscle as I appeared. Not one head turned in my direction, not a figure stirred, not one man or woman. Each of the well dressed figures seemed to be in the grip of some drug which had frozen them as effectively as the wax models in Madame Toussad's.

A spasmodic clutch at my empty inner jacket pocket only reminded me once more of my stupidity in not bringing along the trusty Webley & Scott. All I had was my pocket knife and as fine a collection of shivers as had danced up and down my spine since I'd heard the howl of the Hound on the moors. However there was nothing for it but to step boldly forward and investigate, just as Holmes would have done had he been there. 

Although, I suppose, with his sharper insight, he would have instantly deduced what only became obvious to me when I was almost within arm's length of the nearest spectator: the reason they were all standing as still as dummies was because they were dummies. Exactly the kind of life-sized mannequins you can see in the windows of dressmakers and tailors, now removed from their usual display settings. So they could attend a tennis match?

I was at a complete loss to explain the situation. Then I noticed that behind the figures a canvas screen had been erected to a height of about eight feet along the entire length of the court. On the canvas was painted a view of yew trees and rolling parkland, and in the middle distance, a fine Georgian mansion with a round dome set atop the roof of one wing. 

It was exactly like the kind of backdrop painted on curtains at theatres to set a scene, which it did very well. An observer could stand on the other side of the court, on uncut rank grass and flowering weeds, with his back to the brick wall of the magazine, yet look across and easily imagine that he was by the side of a private tennis court set on some great country estate, watching a party of weekend guests waiting for a game which about to commence.

"My God!" I said aloud. "Maude!"

In an instant I realised what was intended by the evil mind which had lured the fairest maid of English tennis to this hidden place. Not only would she have to pose before his lecherous eyes, but in a way which would suggest that she had done so willingly before an audience at some weekend retreat of the social elite. Thus the blackmail effect of any photographs would be even more effective, and not only on Maude herself. What if that mansion and the scenery in the background had been drawn from real life? 

What damaging upheavals might not flow from the passing around of such photographs? God in heaven, could this be plot by a bunch of evil foreigners to unsettle the British nation by dragging the name of some noble and well connected family through the mire? If so, Maude and Wiggins and myself had completely failed to comprehend the magnitude of this case. No mere bagatelle of lustful villainy here, but a deep and dangerous plot drawn up by unscrupulous minds with great resources of money and base cunning. Even Moriaty, that Napoleon of crime, would never have stooped so low, nor conceived a plan of such unmitigated filthiness.

Before I could consider the situation any further I heard the sound of voices at the entrance to the magazine and I realised that I was within seconds of being discovered. There was nowhere I could run to, even if I'd been capable of running. Nowhere to hide either -- unless...

I stumbled towards the nearest tableau of motionless figures and joined it, in the middle, standing slightly back and between a lady wearing a feather trimmed hat and a gentleman attired in a sporting blazer of vivid stripes. I mean, of course, that I was standing beside two display figures who where wearing such clothing. Standing and trembling and yet trying to appear as motionless as the wax figurines ranged on either side of me. It was a desperate subterfuge, probably as equally hopeless as it was likely to be embarrassing when I was discovered. Yet what else could I do but try to remain undiscovered as part of that lifeless crowd until I found some way of rescuing Maude?

Imagine then my feelings at being in this position and hearing footsteps passing behind me. Several sets of feet and Maude's voice: "What are these people doing here? What's happening?

Another female voice answered, clear and yet defaced by a gutter Cockney accent: "They're only shop dummies, Miss Maude. There's some trickery going on here."

That must be either Angel or Chrissie, I realised. And then I remembered what Wiggins had said about how they were carrying concealed pistols on their persons. Surely one of them would soon get a chance to draw her firearm and put a swift stop to this vile business?

Somebody walked past me, almost brushing my clothing as he walked out onto the court. A man, a young man, wearing tennis clothes, a white shirt and flannels, and, incredibly, a papier mache party mask, moulded and painted to resemble the brutal features of a Japanese samurai warrior. Presumably the only possible reason for donning such a mask was to conceal the wearer's identity. This supposition was confirmed by another man who followed the first, also dressed in tennis whites and masked, this one crafted to resemble an African tribal chief.

The man in the Samurai mask was carrying a tripod, the African a large wooden box which he set down, opened and took out from within a modern and expensive camera. As the photographic apparatus was lifted out of its carrying box I clearly heard a feminine cry of alarm from nearby.

Hearing this, I gritted my teeth and waited for one of the girls to get the drop on the men, as I once heard a gentleman from Texas describe it. Yet instead of stillness caused by a threatening gun muzzle there was more bustle and action to my left.

Three more of the masked abductors appeared, carrying between them the umpire's chair, which they set down on the court near to the net. Again, each of the masks was a caricature, and each different. A Prussian officer, a pirate with an eye patch, a white faced clown. With the Samurai and the African erecting the camera, that made five of the young curs that I could see. How many more were there? And why were Wiggins' much vaunted female agents not drawing their weapons?

That was a question which was answered almost as soon as I saw the three girls walking out together onto the court. For following them were two more masked men. At the angle I first saw them it was impossible to make out the features painted on their masks. What I could see were the unsheathed swords each man had in his hand. Long thin blades, rapier blades, scarcely visible save for the sunlight glittering along their lengths, with the tips darting around behind the girls, sometimes jabbing into their linen dresses to elicit a cry of pain from the victim and a bound in the air like a startled deer. Clustered together, the captive females were driven forward by their tormentors as if they were nothing but cattle being herded into a market pen. Little wonder that neither Angel or Chrissie had attempted to draw their firearms under such circumstances, when the response would certainly be immediate and serious injury, if not worse.

Curse it, how was it possible for our plans to go so far awry?

Because, as I now realised, the plans had been made on faulty assumptions. Wiggins had thought there was but one man to deal with: a rich one, probably, and inflamed by lust, but merely one evildoer and a few servants. So three capable girls well prepared for the task could have been well expected to turn the tables on such a poltroon. If any of us could have foreseen the extent of this plot... well, certainly I wouldn't have found myself unarmed and standing like a dummy amongst other dummies, helpless to interfere in this monstrous plot. For even announcing my presence might be enough to startle one of the rapier wielding thugs into wounding Maude or one of the sisters. My God, the female tennis champion of England crippled by a sword thrust! It didn't bear thinking about.

Desperately I hoped that Wiggins would arrive soon, by some miracle which I knew in my heart to be impossible. But in the meantime the girls were standing close the umpire's chair, still huddled together like sheep surrounded by marauding wolves. Now I could see the visages on the masquerade masks worn by the guards with the drawn blades. 

The slanting eyes and the long moustaches of a Chinese Imperial Mandarin on one painted face, the warpaint of a Red Indian on the other. As the camera was set carefully upon its tripod the Prussian, the Pirate and the Clown moved forward with set purpose. Two of them seized the arms of one of the sisters, twisted them, forced her to step up against the side of the high chair: the other one, the Clown, produced two short lengths of cord from his pockets and used them to tie the girl's wrists at waist height to two of the chair legs. It was something she was unable to resist, not only with each of her arms being held but with a rapier point pricking her posterior as a further warning against any useless resistance.

Once the knots had been tied the other one of Wiggins' girls was treated in the same manner, so that the sisters were standing face to face and looking at each other through the framework of the chair, their heads below the level of the umpire's seat. Naturally, I wondered at the reason for these actions, although I was sure that they boded no good. Nor did I see any reason to change that opinion as Maude was secured to the rear of the chair in the same manner. The Samurai and the African moved the position of the camera a little, so it seemed to be pointed directly at one of the sisters, then the Samurai lifted up the black cloth at the back of the photographic device and placed his head underneath it.

Immediately, the Prussian put his hands on the blonde girl's waist in a thoroughly intimate and disgusting manner. One of his hands moved lower, against her very hip, then disappeared from sight. Astonished, I realised that the Prussian had either known or had quickly discovered that supposedly secret slit in the skirt which enabled the wearer to reach for the pistol hidden within.

But it was neither Angel nor Chrissie's hand which withdrew the shiny weapon and held it up for inspection. No, it was held in the Prussian's fingers and he seemed to wave the weapon in a kind of mock triumphal manner before presenting it to one of his fellow villains. Following which action, he pushed his hand back into the slit again and apparently began a grossly offensive search of discovery under the girl's skirt. 

A search which called forth the most heart rending cries of distress from his forlorn victim and a violent series of struggles, counteracted by the Prussian pressing himself against her in the lewdest manner, squeezing the girl between his strong body and the support bar between the chair legs. Eventually she could make no movement which would not further inflame his amorous desires. Sensing this. she stood still, until he put his other hand up to the front of her body and laid it on one of her bosoms. Yet even the struggle against that wanton outrage eventually subsided as her strength waned.

It was at that point she was apparently urged to face the camera so that the scene might be clearly recorded in every disgusting detail. And, I noticed, at an angle which much have also included in the background several of the dummy figures. I also noticed in every detail how flushed was Miss Oakes’ s face, and how wide her eyes were as she stared at the rough handling of her companion. 

With my honed deductive abilities, I realised that her appearance seemed almost identical with the behaviour she had displayed when listening at Mrs Hudson's door. A very strange observation indeed, and the only connecting link between the two occasions was that the molested girl was beginning to make sounds somewhat similar to those of Mrs Hudson's sick parrot. An odd coincidence. But I had no time to ponder it further as one of the molesters raised his head, his attention fixed for the space of a few heart beats on a few puffy clouds drifting past on the horizon.

In a flash of insight I realised how important it might be for the gang that conditions should remain as they were. In the strong sunlight the pictures should be near perfect reproductions. Doubtless that was one reason why this place was chosen, in the open air but completely isolated from view. Nor could the pretence of the painted background have been sustained within the bounds of a room. What a damned piece of work this was, and no way of stopping it on my own...

There was movement around the chair, masked figures moving around it, closing in again. This time the Pirate had his hand inside the girl's skirt while both the Red Indian and the Clown toyed with her bosoms. Another short and useless struggle on her part, and then the Pompeian tableau was held in animation for a second or so as another plate was exposed and then removed from the camera. In the meantime the Prussian had walked past Miss Oakes, slapping her posterior as he did so, her jaw dropping with shock at such insolence. Then he stepped up behind the other sister and disarmed her, the Mandarin standing close by to take the pistol. And, as everybody there now expected would happen, his hand went back inside the captive maiden's skirt to perform actions which should have no place at all outside the matrimonial bed in the dark of night.

The cries of Wiggins' helpless employees sounded loudly in my ears as both of them capitulated into a futile slow dance of despair against the hands which molested them from all sides. As the camera was moved around the chair the Prussian appeared to give some orders. Angel and Chrissie's hats were removed and their tightly bunned hair unpinned in what seemed to be an oddly gentle way. Then, as the Mandarin and the Clown laid their wanton hands on the girl, the Prussian turned her head towards the  nearest sister and kissed her through the mouthpiece of the mask. 

Perhaps by then she was too bemused to know what was happening because she seemed to be responding to his kiss as if it were from a genuine lover instead of a loathsome lecher. Indeed, when he left her and the Mandarin pressed for the same display of affection she offered it with the same apparent eagerness, even with his hand still taking insufferable liberties inside her clothing.

Oh well, as good looking as they were, the sisters were in truth only hired guttersnipes and nothing better than abject surrender to brute force was to be expected from them. Miss Oakes, of course, was horrified at being forced to witness a scene rapidly descending into unbelievable depths of iniquity. For by now the thug wearing the African mask had left the camera man to continue his work unaided to join the molesters in their wicked pursuits. Three around Angel, three around Chrissie, stroking the girls underneath and outside their clothing, kissing them, running their fingers through the long tresses of blonde hair, nibbling on their ears and whispering a running stream of foulness into their ears.

Naturally, the effect was to bring on convulsions in the poor trapped females. Their bodies quivered as if in the final throes of malaria, they called out to their maker for relief, twisted and jerked against their restraints and finally slumped against the cross bars of the chair as the kidnappers laughed at the effects they had achieved. I only hoped that whatever damage they had caused to the girls would not be of a permanent nature. And then the Prussian stood behind Maude and removed her hat. As if this was a signal they had been waiting upon the rest of his followers abandoned Chrissie and Angel and began to press around their final victim like hyenas waiting their chance.

"Love all, Miss Watson," I heard the Prussian jeer.

Maude's face was brick red, her lips wide apart as she struggled for breath, her eyes almost rolling back in her head as the insolent young swine scratched her underneath one earlobe. His hand ran down her neck, underneath her arm, onto the magnificent swellings at the front of her dress and lingered there, gently squeezing Maude's body like a Caesar showing his mastery over a conquered Queen. I remembered her prophetic words about becoming a Roman triumph in an iron cage if she lost the final: well, she had not yet lost the final but it was clear she was in clear and present danger of losing all her other virtues.

The Prussian abandoned her upper torso, left those contours to other hands, and did for Maude as he had for the sisters, removing a pistol from its intimate hiding place. And having removed it his hand went back from whence it had came as all the other kidnappers crowded around him to caress whatever part of Maude's tethered body each of them could reach. Her head swayed from side to side as long drawn out cries issued from her mouth, and still the villains plied their wickedness on her. I took a half step towards the scene, then stopped, realising the futility of trying to do anything under the present circumstances. Indeed, and ashamed I am to confess it, but my body was reacting to the sight of Maude's distress in a way which would have revealed to even the most casual observer that I was not a waxwork dummy but a being of flesh and blood -- male flesh and blood.

As a doctor I had on occasion been queried by young gentleman whom had been bothered by the same problem of involuntary arousal when overly excited by proximity to female bodies. I had always firmly advised them that such bodily functions were simply a mere physiological whim which could be firmly dealt with by suitable mental discipline. However, as the gang continued their outrages upon Maude I confess that nothing I could do seemed to have any effect on my virility -- nor on my trembling legs and sweating brow.

Yes, I closed my eyes but all that achieved was to make the sounds I was hearing even more stimulating to that part of a man which seems eternally bound to the old Adam and original sin. And when Miss Oakes eventually gave out a series of shuddering cries of total despair my eyelids sprang open of their own accord: I saw her leaning against the chair, her features akin to that of a bather swept over a waterfall and now floating in some peaceful pool, astonished to find herself still alive.

Of course the villains were far from finished with her. But first they turned their attention to Angel and Chrissie again. Though this time it was to their clothing. The buttons on the backs of their dresses were undone, the gaps pulled open to reveal the laces on their corsets, the laces in turn unknotted and loosened. Then one of the sisters had her wrists freed, though her arms were still held tightly by the Clown and the Indian as the top of her dress was pulled down over her white -- and much freckled -- shoulders and then down her arms. 

Finally there was nothing but a pile of white linen around the girl's ankles which was in turn was quickly covered by a discarded camisole. Clad only in her bloomers and a loosened waist corset, the girl was dragged around to the front of the umpire's chair, where the Mandarin used the point of a rapier to prod her into climbing the ladder at the front. I noticed that a large pillow had been placed on the high chair, and on this the apprehensive girl sat, her feet at the same level as the shoulders of the watchers on the ground. Instantly the Pirate and the Clown swarmed up the side bars, each using their free hands to pluck at the waistband of her bloomers, the Prussian ascending several of the chair steps to help the pair of rogues in removing this last vestige of decent covering.

Another few seconds passed and the maiden on top of the chair was being made to hold herself still again as her portrait was recorded with not a stitch on her but the short corset, a garment which covered her only from the hips up to the loosened top. The rapscallions in the masks crowded around the chair like spectators at a gallows awaiting a public hanging. 

The Prussian moved up the ladder until his head was between the girl's thighs, where he lifted up the mask so that his face was uncovered but still hidden from view. The mask he then pushed so far back over his head that it was pointing straight up in the air. After which he pressed his head in as far as he could into the space before him as he appeared to kiss her private parts. I gasped in surprise, but nearly as much as the girl.

It's true of course that such perverse variations on the normal relationships between male and female are well known in the East; indeed, there are temples in India which openly display carvings depicting even more unnatural depravities, difficult as this may be for any civilised mind to accept. But that I should ever see such actions being performed in public in a London suburb was beyond my comprehension. Neither could I understand why the man behind the upside down face of the Prussian was taking so long in simply placing a kiss on a woman's body, no matter how intimate the place he was choosing to assault with his lips.

Perhaps, I conjectured, he was biting her and causing her pain, for she soon seemed to be in some distress. She was unable to sit still, she seemed distracted, her hands went down to his head, then lifted up and -- apparently unaware or uncaring of the other watching males -- she plucked her bosoms out of the top of the corset, nipping the tips of them between her fingers as if attempting to find some relief from her distress. 

The camera was tilted up and she was apparently ordered to stay still for several seconds with her hands clutching at her own soft flesh, an order she seemed to find as difficult to obey as a command to stop shivering whilst sitting on an ice floe. Then, as soon as the picture was taken her heels began drumming on the back of the Prussian in a kind of devil's dance. A dance that came to an end in a squeal from her throat as if she was a rabbit caught by a ferret as her body arched like a drawn bow string just before the arrow is loosed. Indeed, the girl seemed to release some kind of pent up energy within herself at the highest point of her squeal and, save for the head still between her opened legs, might have slipped forward out of the chair in a half faint.

I can hardly say the horror I felt at being forced to watch such indignities being performed on a helpless female. Yet there was some dark spell cast by this evil which still held my own body in its thrall, a sorcery I could not break, an excitement which had the blood pounding inside my head as the Prussian replaced his mask, stepped down from the chair and pointed to Maude as the next girl to be displayed aloft as a captured trophy. Indeed, as Maude was taken towards the chair I had terrible visions of my heightened blood pressure breaking a vein in my nose and letting a betraying streak of red fall across my face.

In quick succession three things happened, events for which I wasn't prepared. The first was that Angela or Chrissie, whichever it was who had been on the chair, stepped off the ladder at the bottom with a look of wild arousal still on her face and smiled at the Pirate, the Indian and the Clown as they closed around her with outstretched hands. The second thing was that Miss Oakes’s features seemed to hint at very much the same state of barely human passion as she was led forward by the Mandarin. 

Her clothing had not yet been interfered with, a state of affairs quickly altered as those of the gang amusing themselves with the newly descended girl abandoned her charms to encircle Maude. Only the Prussian stood aside with his arms folded as the other gang members stripped off Miss Oakes’s garments with no great apparent hurry and some care. Surrounded by such an overwhelming presence, both they and she knew that resistance could achieve nothing.

The knot of men appeared to move closer to the chair, then parted a little as the Prussian approached. Clearly he was the leader of this pack of fiends. But such was my agitation at the scene I glimpsed at that moment that all other thoughts were as nothing. For between the figures I saw that Maude was bent forward with her head thrust between two rungs of the chair's ladder and powerful hands pushing down on her back prevented any attempt to raise herself from that position. 

The result was that the fairest sports lady in the Kingdom was bent forward from the waist, helpless to move, her hands gripping the side of the chair, the empty holster hanging from the bottom of her waist corset, now rucked so far up that the holster was almost underneath her waist. And not only was her entire lower body completely uncovered, one of her magnificent bosoms had tumbled out of its bodice cup to be looked upon and thoroughly fondled. I saw another brazen hand move in to release the matching pillow of silk skin from the confines of Maude's corset, I saw her quiver and rise on tiptoe as other hands slapped against the curves of her bared buttocks.

Then the men closed around her again, blocking my view of what was happening, and again I took an involuntary step, before I came to my senses and stopped again -- and then realised I hadn't stepped towards Maude but sideways. Not with some wild hope of rescuing her, but only to reach a better vantage point where I could see more clearly what was being done to her and what was about to be done. And, again, it was the Prussian who was giving the orders as Maude's heart rending cries were swept aside by his strong voice

One his acolytes, the Mandarin, stepped around the chair with a rapier in his hand and slashed through the bonds holding the other sister in place. She lifted up her hands in front of her, pulled off the severed loops of cord and looked at the man with the  weapon. I couldn't see her expression but at a wave of the blade she went before him to stand at one side of Maude, facing across her back as her sister was summoned to meet her face to face. 

The men moved back a little as the recently released girl leaned forward over Maude so her sister could put her arms around her and undo the laces of her corset. Once the garment was loose the girl wearing it had bosoms gently lifted out over the top by her sister's hands, an act clearly well approved of by the audience. In the meanwhile the African and the Samuri were changing the camera plates as quickly as they could.

Again I heard Maude call out as her head was pulled back from the ladder, she was ordered to stand up and then turn around to confront her tormentors in her disrobed and disordered condition. With her hands hanging from her sides she made no attempt to cover herself, her eyes wide and rolling around her as if wondering in what direction and from which masked figure the next outrage against her person was to come from. 

Yet there were vices here which neither of us could have guessed at, for the Prussian spoke and Angel and Chrissie obeyed, no doubt convinced that they could not refuse even the vilest request put upon them. For both of them laid a hand on one of Maude's breasts and toyed with them in exactly the same way as the males had done.

I saw her magnificent figure lift itself on tiptoe in shock, truly like the very embodiment of a classical Goddess of Antiquity, and prepared myself to lift my stick and charge at the Prussian with the intention of dashing the leader's brains out. Until one of the blonde girls laughed and I also saw that Maude had put her arms around both of the sisters to return their caresses in kind. Now it was my turn to feel as if I'd been turned to stone, and frozen in position I remained as this extraordinary tryst continued. But even as the three girls were passionately pressing themselves against each other, even as they exchanged hot blooded kisses, the gang moved again to change the scene.

Angel and Chrissie were pushed aside and then Maude was lifted bodily from the grass, the Pirate and Mandarin with their arms underneath her back as she lay on them as if in a hammock, the nape of her neck pressed up against a rung on the ladder to keep her head raised high. The Clown and the Red Indian were also helping to support her weight, their palms underneath her bottom, the backs of her outstretched legs resting on each man's shoulders with the sides of her knees pressing against their necks. In such a position there could be no pretence of Miss Oakes retaining any shred of modesty. And certainly none to an onlooker standing only a few paces in front of her, as the Prussian was.

He laughed, pointed a finger at each hand at one of the sisters and crooked them in summons. Without a word being spoken the girls hurried to his side as if they were the slaves of some Eastern potentate. If he gave an order then I didn't hear it -- perhaps none was needed, for one of the sisters knelt to undo his shoe laces and the other to unbutton his shirt. Neither showed anything but cheerful eagerness in performing their task. 

Even he was stripped by the two beautiful girls the Prussian's gaze hardly ever strayed away from Maude's body as it continued to be held up for his inspection and delectation. Until his shirt and trousers were removed and thrown over the tennis net and then he glanced down. Down at the golden hair of the sister whom had knelt at his feet again to carry out an act of passion which no animal would perform. And when I saw the other hand maiden also kneeling down, to offer her opened mouth alongside that of her sister... not in India, not even in France had I believed such depravity to be capable of expression. And to do it in the open air, in full view of the other men.

What must be passing through Maude's mind at this spectacle I dared not imagine. Yet she was certainly not comatose with shock, as I expected, for she was wriggling and squirming on top of the arms and hands holding her. At first I thought this was because of the horror of the scene being enacted in front of her, and then I saw that the men with their hands under her buttocks were taking turns at touching the poor innocent girl in the most intimate place of all with their thumbs. No wonder she was gurgling deep in her throat and wriggling as violently as a broken backed snake. Where, oh where was Wiggins and his party rescuers?

A big blue horsefly began circling my head, then settled on my nose. One of the sisters engorged herself on the Prussian's organ, I twitched, and the other sister stood up and knelt down again, this time with her head between Maude's finely muscled thighs. A head which moved forward, apparently to perform the same service as the Prussian had performed for the girl on the ladder. Maude squealed, her arms were around the waists of the men supporting her back and her legs quivered against the necks of the clown and the Red Indian: quivered and shook as if she'd been struck by lightning. 

The fly began walking up my nose in a million tiny footsteps, the Prussian pulled up the girl from her position of service to his organ and stepped up to Maude with the other girl also standing up. Together the three of them stood in a group, looking down at Maude, the sisters hands clamped together, one in front of the other on the length of the Prussian's manhood as if he somehow needed some final encouragement before committing the ultimate outrage.

The fly crawled into a corner of my eye, I gripped my walking stick, the Prussian seized Maude's waist to cries of encouragement from his accomplices, the sisters performed their final act of betrayal against their fellow female by helping him to sheathe his sword in Maude's sheath and the Prussian bellowed in triumph as he ravaged the tennis champion of all England.

Still no sign of rescue, and too late now anyway to save poor Miss Oakes’s virtue. It was gone, plucked from her in the most shameful and disgusting manner conceivable. Inwardly, my trapped emotions seemed to be breaking loose with the uncontrollable force of a double charge of gunpowder within a gun barrel, my vision blurred, the horsefly touched one of my eyelashes, then flew away, Maude shrieked, my head seemed to be floating away from my body and I suddenly saw blades of grass very close to my face.

In fact I must have fainted. By and by my eyes opened, on a scene which I could not believe. The Prussian was seated on top of the umpire's chair, and Maude was on the ladder -- or, to be accurate, she was holding a ladder rung in one hand and both her outstretched feet were resting on the side supports. Sitting below her, between her opened legs, was a naked male with neither his face or mask visible to me as they were hidden behind Maude's loins. 

I could well see where both of his hands were though. Kneeling in front of the hidden male was one of the sisters, using her mouth to satisfy the ruffian's beastly desires. Underneath her opened thighs was the crushed mask of the Pirate and straddled on top of him was the last girl, her hands gripping her sister's shoulders as she fornicated wildly with the Pirate. Other members of the gang were idly watching all this -- except for the Mandarin, who walked towards me with a small black bottle and a rag in his hand.

"Good match isn't it, Doctor? I think the best of three is the technical term. Pity you can't stay around to watch the double faults when we change ends."

He poured some fluid from the bottle onto the rag.

"What..." Even though I was still lying down and it was a useless gesture, I gripped my walking stick.

"Don't worry, Doctor Watson, it's only chloroform to put you back to sleep. But a word of advice before you nod off. Your face is clearly visible amongst the crowd in some of the plates we've already exposed. Not that we want to threaten you but if you were to continue this investigation in any way -- well, it could be very embarrassing for Doctor Watson as well as for Miss Oakes if those photographs were passed around. And, by jove, isn't our champion galloping along in fine style?"

I looked again at the disgusting scene on the chair and saw the pattern of muscles straining along the backs of Maude's legs as she twitched up and down like a kitten being teased with a spool of wool. This, I thought, was as complete a debasement of an innocent girl as ever been accomplished since Caligula reigned. Before any further coherent thought could be formed the rag was placed over my nose and mouth.

---

No more did I know until another hour or more had passed and Wiggins was waking me up.

Of the masked men, of the girls, of Maude Watson, there was no sign. No dummies, no net, no chair. Even the clothes with the background scenery had gone, although the railway carriage still waited at the magazine loading platform. Waited, but empty and deserted. No sign of the passengers anywhere and Wiggins shocked to his very core when I gave him the barest inkling of how disastrously mislaid his plans had proved to be. Yet he was nowhere as grieved as I was. 

I took a cab straight back to Baker Street at ruinous expense, immediately went to bed and then found I couldn't sleep because of feelings of self disgust and crushing failure that have no place in this simple story. Let me simply record that in the small hours of the morning I was forced to administer a strong sleeping draught to myself and woke up at three o'clock the following afternoon when Sherlock Holmes walked into my bedroom and cast down a newspaper on my coverlet.

"Holmes! You're back."

"Watson, your powers of observation never cease to amaze me. Yes, my work in the Balkans is finished and the case of the Emperor's footsteps is closed."

I tried to wake myself up: "The case of the Emperor's footsteps? Are you talking about the Emperor of Austria?"

Holmes laughed and struck a match for his pipe: "No, Watson, nor yet the Kaiser's footsteps, or the Czar's. The Emperor that I followed down the shores of the Danube died two thousand years ago. Yet when I arrived back here at the crack of dawn from the boat train and begged an early breakfast from Mrs Hudson I learnt that you yourself seemed to have had a most interesting case dropped into your lap in my absence. Mrs Hudson didn't know what had brought Miss Oakes here but she knew it must be something important, especially when you summoned Wiggins with such despatch."

"Oh."

Once again the black bile of complete failure rose up in my gorge as the sweet oblivion of sleep dissipated.

"I found our good landlady's information somewhat interesting, Watson. My usual way with a case is to start at the beginning and work through to the end. But here I seemed to have two ends of a case and no middle. I knew that Miss Oakes had consulted you, and I could surmise that it had something to do with today's tennis final. So, before applying my mind to the mysterious middle part I decided to go to Wimbledon to see how Miss Oakes fared in her match."

I turned my face to the wall: "Then you must have had a wasted journey, Holmes," I said bitterly. "A walkover for Miss Cavangh because Miss Oakes was too indisposed to appear."

"On the contrary, Watson, Miss Oakes was not only present, she played the game of her life. A magnificent performance that absolutely blasted the American girl off the court. Your friend is now a national heroine."

"What, Holmes! What! Is that true or are you making fun of me?"

Holmes seemed startled, a most unusual response from him of all people: "I never make jokes, my dear friend, as well you know." He picked up the paper and passed it to me. "Here, read it for yourself in the late news column."

"But, but... Holmes, did you notice her racket? Maude's racket

"Miss Oakes's racket? I took no special account of it." He closed his eyes in thought for a moment. "Leather covered handle, white stitching, a great deal of wear and tear, the handmarks on the handle matching Miss Oakes's grip exactly. All I can therefore tell you is that her racket was one which has long been in the lady's possession and which she evidently uses a very great deal. Indeed, I suspect that it is the only racket that she has ever played with. Oh, and I noticed that the  maker's name was Mullard. Mullard and sons, to be precise."

"You took no special note of her racket yet you remember it in such great detail?" I protested.

The great detective shrugged: "I've told you many times, Watson, we both see. The difference is that you only see but I see and notice. Never mind, tell me why this matter of the lady's racket seems so important to you -- and why did you call in Wiggins?"

Totally bewildered, I explained what had happened, knowing full it was a story which reflected little credit on myself. As for what had happened in the old magazine store, it would have been almost impossible to repeat the details to any normal listener. Holmes, however, was not normal. Indeed, there were many times when I had felt that he was simply some kind of a superb reasoning machine concealed behind a mere facade of flesh and blood. In that spirit I enlightened him as to the details of the case without the embarrassment which I would have felt in laying the information before anyone else.

When I'd finished he put his meerschaum pipe on the mantelpiece to cool down and left the bedroom without a word, returning a few minutes later with one of his innumerable files. He opened and spread out a mass of photographs and drawings, each one displaying a view of one of the stately homes of England.

"There, Watson, there." He passed me one of the drawings. "Does that look familiar to you?"

Indeed it did -- it was a view I would never forget: "That's the mansion I saw on the scenery clothes,with the same observatory dome," I said. "What is that place? To whom does it belong?"

"That is Leavenworth Hall, the ancestral home of Lord Leavenworth, Watson. The most politically influential peer in the realm and the man who holds the reins of power in the internal affairs of the Liberal Party."

"My God!" I stared at him, thunderstruck. "So this is indeed all part of some nefarious foreign plot, Holmes!"

The great man shook his head, a faint smile on his lips: "No, Watson, hardly that. You see, I happen to know that young Wiggins has ambitions of standing for a seat in the House of Commons in the next election. Standing, furthermore, in the Liberal interest, which means that he must first be selected by that party to contest a seat."

"Wiggins!"

"Of course, Watson. Wiggins. He has contacts everywhere. Contacts enough to know that I had purchased boat train tickets and would thus be out of the country, and contacts enough to have Miss Oakes's racket stolen. No doubt he also arranged for the lady to be directed here from her hotel, knowing that in my absence you would almost certainly seek out his services."

Holmes shook his head ruefully: "I fear I may have created something of a Frankenstein in that young man. Still, there always was a spark of genius about him."

"But, but... Holmes, are you saying that Wiggins allowed Maude and those girls to be abducted?"

"My dear Watson, Wiggins was the abductor. He and his gang. No doubt he was the one wearing the Prussian mask. And, by the way, the two sisters you describe almost certainly weren't abducted. They knew exactly what was going to happen and merely served as Judas goats to help lead Miss Oakes into the trap."

I could hardly credit my ears: "Why would Wiggins do such a thing?"

Holmes smiled: "Exactly for the reason you surmised, Watson. For blackmail. Either Lord Leavenworth helps Wiggins to be pre-selected for a seat he has a good chance of winning or some very unsavoury pictures are likely to appear, photographs which appear to have been taken on the grounds of Leavenworth Hall."

"This is nonsense, pure nonsense, Holmes," I protested. "Whatever Lord Leavenworth might be induced to do and whatever his influence, it is impossible for me to believe that a reputable political party would offer to adopt somebody like Wiggins as one of its parliamentary candidates. He's a vulgar little upstart, a hobbledehoy, a man of no family whatsoever. Nobody has ever even heard of him. And, anyway, he's only a boy. The whole idea is absurd to the nth degree."

Holmes smiled, as if seeing a chemical reaction behave exactly as he had expected it to do so: "Once again, I urge you to read the latest news column in that newspaper."

Extremely puzzled by his words, I picked up the newspaper, read the column, and nearly suffered a stroke as I read it aloud: "After the match Miss Oakes announced her betrothal to Mr Harold Wiggins!"

"A nice touch, hey, Watson? Wiggins is a nobody no longer, instead he's affianced to one of the most beautiful and best known girls in the land. Under those circumstances and with Lord Leavenworth's ardent support, I'm sure he'll have no problem in being selected -- nor in winning a seat."

"But he's blackmailing her into marrying him, Holmes, blackmailing her with those photographs. It must be stopped."

"Hmmm..." Holmes stood up, removed his pipe from the mantelpiece and took out his tobacco pouch. "Well, Watson, it's true that whenever I've made a mistake in handling a case, it's almost always been because of my inability to understand the feminine psyche. Yet I was standing next to Miss Oakes when she made her nuptial announcement to a crowd of reporters and a gentleman from the Times. If she was not greatly excited and blissfully happy about the matter then she must be a far better actress even than she is an athlete. No, I don't believe she is being blackmailed at all."

"You were standing next to her? How was that possible."

"Wiggins invited me to be there. And to stand as best man for him at his wedding, so if his intended bride does change her mind I'll be in an excellent position to know about it. But I don't think she will."

"Best man? You've agreed to be his best man?" I was totally bewildered.

"His mother is dead, he never knew his father, I was the first adult to give him any kind of helping hand and he has followed in my footsteps. It's not unreasonable to regard myself as standing in loco parentis to the young man." Holmes struck a match, applied it to the pipe and spoke rather indistinctly around the mouthpiece as he drew on it. "Besides, Watson, in our latter years we may be very glad to claim acquaintanceship with a member of cabinet -- perhaps even Prime Minister Wiggins himself."

I was bewildered: "But after what I've told you, there's no question of allowing the marriage to proceed. Maude is being forced into going to the alter with the young thug."

"And, I repeat, I have seen no evidence of Miss Oakes being forced into doing anything. Wiggins certainly abducted her, her certainly ravished her, and he most certainly gave some experiences she would never otherwise have been exposed to -- if you'll pardon the phrase, Watson. Perhaps by the customs of our society she should have become distraught as a result -- yet the only female suffering from any degree of distress appears to be Miss Cavangh. 

As far as I can tell Miss Oakes appears to have thoroughly enjoyed the whole business and to have acquired a special pleasure from Wiggins' company -- his very close company, shall we say? If she wishes to continue to enjoy that company within the bonds of holy matrimony, than that is a matter purely between her and Wiggins. In matters of this kind there are urges which outsiders meddle in at their peril.”

"Urges? What kind of urges, Holmes?"

"Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary."

THE END

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