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“Not at all. You will be pleased to hear that the apparatus of Röntgen pronounces you sane. We have eliminated the impossible story of the leech. There remains another, highly improbable explanation, which we will shortly confirm as true. By the way, may I assume that either Wilfrid Jarman or his brother was present on the occasion when that planchette spelt out such a disquieting message?”

“Yes, Basil was there. The brother.”

“The brother who dabbles in electrical devices. I wonder if he applied his ingenuity to enlivening those séances. In any case, according to my researches, it is far from difficult for a determined hand to influence the oracle of the ouija board. But here we are! Watson, I am sure you have change for the cabman.”

Jarman, Fittlewell and Coggs, solicitors and commissioners of oaths, occupied a fourth-floor set of offices. Without a great deal of ado we were shown into the large, dim room where Wilfrid Jarman awaited. He was a plump and kindly looking man in late middle age, whose baldness and pince-nez spectacles were slightly reminiscent of Mr Pickwick. A frowsty legal atmosphere exuded from numerous shelves of books bound in dull brown calf. Holmes’s nostrils widened like a hound’s as he keenly sniffed the air. I unobtrusively followed suit, and thought to detect a trace of not unfamiliar chemical whiff.

Jarman was greeting our client, saying, “I am most pleased, Martin, that you feel equal at last to your little ordeal. So many people take fright at a simple affidavit or conveyance! But you must introduce your friends.”

The formalities over, Jarman indicated the bulky document that lay on his desk. “A tiresome necessity,” he said with a shrug. “Believe me, my dear boy, I would readily dispense with it – but we lawyers must live by the law, or where would we be?”

The question being unanswerable, Traill muttered something suitably meaningless.

“Look!“ cried Holmes suddenly. “That face at the window! We are being spied upon!”

Our heads jerked around to the large office window, which showed only the dim and fog-shrouded skyline across Theobald’s Road. The solicitor even took a ponderous step or two towards the window, before turning back and stating acidly: “Mr Holmes, we are on the fourth floor. And expert cat-burglars do not commonly risk their necks for legal paperwork.”

Holmes made some feeble apology and mentioned trouble with his nerves. I recognized the signs of a ruse, and on reflection thought that – out of the corner of my eye – I had seen his hand dart to the broad desktop. But all seemed unchanged.

“Let us deal with the business at hand,” said Jarman, placing a finger on the thick paper where the signature was to go.

Traill took up the quill pen and dipped it in ink. He hesitated. His trembling hand moved forward, back, and then resolutely forward again. The air seemed suddenly charged with menace. From behind the desk Jarman smiled indulgently, and seemed to shift his weight a little to one side. For an instant I thought I felt, rather than heard, a faint sourceless whining.

Simultaneously, Traill snatched his hand back with a cry, and there was an explosion of blinding, dazzling light from the desk. Jarman’s thick voice uttered an oath. I clapped my hand to my revolver, but the room was blotted out by coruscating after-images. White smoke swirled. Slowly some shreds of vision returned.

“ ‘Tis sport,” Sherlock Holmes quoted, “to have the engineer hoist with his own petard.”

“I felt my hand burning again,” said Traill. “But that great flash was not my nerves, nor spirits either.”

The fat solicitor’s hand seemed burnt as well, from the flare; he cursed in a low, filthy undertone.

Holmes said briskly, “Forgive my theatricality. It seemed a useful notion to slip a flat packet of magnesium flash powder, appropriately fused, underneath that interesting document. Mr Jarman’s office may appear old-fashioned, but it conceals some thoroughly modern equipment – specifically, a high-frequency Tesla coil within