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“I am so sorry to disappoint you, Mr Robinson, but I have nothing here. If I remember rightly my late client was a very retiring sort of person and inordinately frightened of burglars, though what he could have had of value up there was beyond me.”

He chuckled rustily.

“Some years ago he had the front door lock changed. It came with a massive single key, which he always retained on him. I have no doubt Mr Smedhurst has it still. My regrets, gentlemen.”

Holmes rose with alacrity and extended his hand to the lawyer.

“It was just a possibility. I am sorry to have disturbed you.”

“Not at all, not at all.”

He waved us out with a smile and as soon as we had regained the street I turned to Holmes.

“Where on earth did you get that letter?”

My companion smiled.

“Forged it, my dear fellow. I thought it might come in useful. I have a passable talent in that direction which has served its purpose from time to time. Now we must interview the young lady, which might be a more delicate matter and then I shall warn Smedhurst to make preparations for his departure.”

“Departure, Holmes?” I said as we walked rapidly down the busy street. “I am all at sea.”

“It is not the first time, old fellow,” said he with a wry smile. “But hopefully all will be made plain in due course.”

We walked several hundred yards and then turned at right-angles down a small alley, lined with pleasant old stone-built cottages. He stopped at the third on the right and opened a wrought-iron gate which gave on to a minuscule garden, where withered plants struggled for existence at this time of year. A motherly-looking lady in her early sixties opened the front door to his knock. She looked surprised, as well she might have.

“We wish to see Miss Eveline Reynolds on a most important matter. Please do not be alarmed, dear lady. A short interview will be greatly to her benefit.”

The cloud gathering on her face disappeared immediately.

“Please come in. My niece is in the next room sewing. Whom shall I say …?”

Holmes leaned forward and whispered something in her ear. I saw a surprising change come over her face.

“I am sure she will be pleased to see you in view of what you have just told me.”

She ushered us into a charmingly furnished oak-beamed parlour where a slim, golden-haired girl of some twenty-eight years was sitting at a sewing frame. She got up suddenly as we entered and looked enquiringly at her aunt.

“Please don’t be alarmed, dear. These are friends of Mr Smedhurst.”

“Ah!”

The girl could not suppress the exclamation that rose to her lips. The aunt had silently withdrawn and Miss Reynolds came forward to shake hands formally, beckoning us into easy chairs near the welcoming fire.

“You have news of Aristide? I have been so worried about him …”

There was such a pleading look on her face that I saw a dramatic change in Holmes himself.

“This is an extremely difficult matter, Miss Reynolds. But I am afraid we are forgetting our manners. I am Sherlock Holmes and this is my friend and colleague Dr Watson. I have asked your aunt not to reveal our identities and I would ask you to do the same.”

He held up his hand as the girl started forward in her chair.

“Please let me continue. Mr Smedhurst is in some great difficulty and he has called upon me to help him. Am I to take it that your engagement has been broken off?”

The girl bit her lip.

“It is nothing of my doing, Mr Holmes. He has changed over the last year or so and become evasive. He no longer confides in me. He has taken to drinking rather heavily and now he has grown that ridiculous-looking beard!”

Little red spots of anger were starting out on her cheeks.

“Forgive me again, my dear young lady, but Mr Smedhurst appears to think that you have transferred your affections elsewhere.”

The girl stared at Holmes in astonishment and then burst out laughing.

“You must mean Mr Jacob Ashton. He is a young Australian who came to the village a long while back. He is a surveyor by profession. My aunt and I occasionally