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The hour of dusk that autumn evening found us taking up our watch in Hertfordshire in that same thick rhododendron shrubbery where Holmes had hidden in the disguise of an old, wrinkled, brown-faced fellow at the beginning of this singular adventure. But where he had from deep within that leafy place of concealment looked out at the mellow brightness of afternoon, we now needed to step only a foot or two in among the bushes to be quite concealed and we looked out at a scene soon bathed in serene moonlight.

All was quiet. No feet trod the path beyond the beech hedge. In the garden no bird hopped to and fro, no insect buzzed. Up at the house, which beneath the light of the full moon we had under perfect observation, two lighted windows only showed how things lay, one high up from behind the drawn curtains of the bedroom where I had visited my mysterious patient, another low down, coming from the partly sunken windows of the kitchen where doubtless the manservant was preparing the light evening repast I myself had recommended.

Making myself as comfortable as I could and feeling with some pleasure the heavy weight of the revolver in my pocket, I set myself to endure a long vigil. By my side Holmes moved from time to time, less able than on other such occasions in the past to keep perfectly still, sore as were his limbs from the cudgel wielded, with mistaken honesty, by that European manservant now busy at the stove.

Our watch, however, was to be much shorter than I had expected. Scarcely half an hour had passed when, with complete unexpectedness, the quiet of the night was broken by a sharp voice from behind us.

“Stay where you are. One move and I would shoot.”

The voice I recognized in an instant from the strength of its foreign accent. It was that of Mr Smith’s loyal servant. Taking care not to give him cause to let loose a blast from the gun I was certain he must be aiming at our backs, I spoke up as calmly as I could.

“I am afraid that not for the first time your zeal has betrayed you,” I said. “Perhaps you will recognize my voice, as I have recognized yours. I am Dr Watson, your master’s medical attendant. I am here with my friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, of whom perhaps you have heard.”

“It is the doctor?”

Behind me, as I remained still as a statue, I heard the crunching of the dried leaves underfoot and a moment later the manservant’s face was thrust into mine.

“Yes,” he said, “it is you. Good. I was keeping guard because of the many rogues there are about here, and I saw in the bushes a movement. I did not like. But it is you and your friend only. That is good.”

“You did well,” Holmes said to him. “I am happy to think that the Count has another alert watcher over him besides ourselves.”

“The Count?” said the servant. “What Count is this?”

“Why, man, your master. There is no need for pretence between the three of us. Dr Watson and I are well aware that the man up in the house there is no Mr Smith, but none other than the Count Palatine of Illyria.”

Holmes’s voice had dropped as he pronounced the name, but his secrecy was greeted in an altogether astonishing manner. The formerly gruff manservant broke into rich and noisy laughter.

“Mr Smith, my Mr Smith the Count Palatine of Illyria?” he choked out at last. “Why, though my master has travelled much, and though I began to serve him while he was in Austria, he has never so much as set foot in Illyria. Of that I can assure you, gentlemen, and as to being the Count Palatine …”

Again the manservant’s laughter overcame him, ringing loudly into the night air.

I do not know what Holmes would have done to silence the fellow, or what attitude he would have taken to this brazen assertion. For at that moment another voice made itself heard, a voice somewhat faint and quavering coming from up beside the house.

“What is this? What is going on there? Josef, is that you?”

It was my patient, certainly recovered from his nervous indisposition enough to venture out to see why there was such a hullabaloo in his grounds.

“Sir, it is the doctor and, sir, a friend of his, a friend