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I frowned.

“Nerve, vanity and a fondness for drink and cards is sometimes an unenviable combination. They make a curious pair.”

“I don’t follow you?”

“I mean, a professor of mathematics and a dissolute army officer lunching together. What can they have in common?”

I allowed my attention to occupy the problem but a moment more. Even at this young age I had come to the conclusion that until one has facts it is worthless wasting time trying to hazard guesses.

My eye turned to the others in the dining room. Some I knew by sight and, one or two I had previously been introduced to in Mycroft’s company. Among these diners was Lord Rosse, who had erected the largest reflecting telescope in the world at his home in Birr Castle. There was also the hard-drinking Viscount Massereene and Ferrard and the equally indulgent Lord Clonmell. There was great hilarity from another table where four young men were seated, voices raised in good-natured argument. I had little difficulty recognizing the Beresford brothers of Curraghmore, the elder of them being the Marquess of Waterford.

My eye eventually came to rest on a corner table where an elderly man with silver hair and round chubby red features was seated. He was well dressed and the waiters constantly hovered at his elbow to attend to his bidding like moths to a fly. He was obviously someone of importance.

I asked Mycroft to identify him.

“The Duke of Cloncury and Straffan,” he said, naming one of the premier peers of Ireland.

I turned back to examine His Grace, whose ancestors had once controlled Ireland, with some curiosity. It was said that a word from Cloncury’s grandfather could sway the vote in any debate in the old Irish Parliament, that was before the Union with England. As I was unashamedly scrutinizing him, His Grace was helped from his chair. He was, I judged, about seventy-something years of age, a short, stocky man but one who was fastidious in his toilet for his moustache was well cut and his hair neatly brushed so that not a silver strand of it was out of place.

He retrieved a small polished leather case, the size of a despatch-box, not more than twelve inches by six by four. It bore a crest in silver on it, and I presumed it to be Cloncury’s own crest.

His Grace, clutching his case, made towards the door. At the same time, I saw Professor Moriarty push back his chair. Some sharp words were being exchanged between the professor and his lunching companion, Colonel Moran. The professor swung round and marched swiftly to the door almost colliding with the elderly duke at their portals. At the last moment, when collision seemed inevitable, the professor halted and allowed his Grace to move thorough the doors before him.

“Some argument has taken place between the professor and his companion,” I observed aloud. “I wonder what the meaning of it is?”

Mycroft looked at me in disgust.

“Really, Sherlock, you always seem to be prying into other people’s affairs. I would have thought you had enough on your plate preparing for your studies at Oxford.”

Even at this time, I had become a close observer of people’s behaviour and it is without any sense of shame that I record my surveillance into the lives of my fellow luncheon room occupants.

I returned my attention to the colonel who was sitting looking disgruntled at his wine glass. A waiter hovered near and made some suggestion but Moran swung with an angry retort, indicating the empty wine bottle on the table, and the waiter backed away. The colonel stood up, went through the motions of brushing the sleeves of his coat, and strode out of the dining room. I noticed that he would be returning for he had left his glass of wine unfinished. Sure enough, the waiter returned to the table with a half bottle of wine uncorked and placed it ready. The colonel, presumably having gone to make some ablutions, returned after some fifteen minutes and reseated himself. He seemed in a better mood for he was smiling to himself.

I was distracted to find that my brother was continuing