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“As to my birth,” ventured Ambrose Bierce, “that calamity occurred in Ohio, in 1842. Nine siblings preceded me. For some reason, it amused my father to afflict all his offspring with names employing the initial letter ‘A’. Our dramatis personoe, in the order of appearance, reads as follows: Abigail, Amelia, Ann, Addison, Aurelius, Augustus, Almeda, Andrew, Albert … and Ambrose.”

“What has this to do with James Phillimore, then?” asked Holmes.

“I was just coming to that,” said Ambrose Bierce. “In my thirtieth year, in the company of a wife whom I never loved, I emigrated to England and became a writer for Tom Hood’s Fun magazine and The Lantern. My wife and I lived at first in London, but during the spring of 1874 we set up housekeeping at Number 20 South Parade, in ...”

“… in Leamington, Warwickshire,” Holmes finished for him. “Watson, I recall the general topography of Leamington Spa from my sojourn there in 1875. Clarendon Square and the South Parade are scarcely a mile apart. Directly between them is Tavistock Street … and the house from which James Phillimore performed his disappearance. Which was indeed a performance … was it not, Mr Bierce?”

Ambrose Bierce nodded sadly. “I shall say nothing against the character of Mrs Crowley, except to observe that – like myself – she was trapped in a loveless marriage. Suffice it to report that she and I ... consoled each other during the spring and summer of 1875.”

I began to see where this was leading. There was a physical resemblance between Bierce and Crowley that transcended their identical costumes. And if Ambrose Bierce had known Emily Crowley some eight or ten months before the birth of her son Aleister, then it was quite possible that …

“The house in Tavistock Street, Bierce,” said Sherlock Holmes impatiently. “Was this the scene of your trysts?”

Bierce nodded once more. “Leased by me from the estate-agents. A false identity was advisable, of course …”

“And so you took the name James Phillimore?”

“I did.” said Bierce. “Edward Crowley was a strait-laced man who considered all forms of entertainment to be highly immoral. He avoided restaurants, theatres, and music-halls … and forbade his wife to visit such emporia. My own wife Mollie was of similar demeanour. On the other hand, Mr James Phillimore and his female companion – do I make myself clear, sir? – gave much custom to Leamington’s pleasure-palaces. At some point during this period, Emily Crowley found herself with child.”

Bierce paused a moment, then resumed: “In May of 1875, my wife departed for California … taking our two infant sons with her. Tom Hood – my literary sponsor in England – had died a few months previously. By late August, Mrs Crowley’s expectant condition was approaching its climax, and – as she had no intention of leaving her husband – I felt it politic to return to America.”

This time it was my turn to serve as questioner: “But what about Mr Phillimore’s strange disappearance?” I asked. “The signs of the peculiar vortex …”

Ambrose Bierce threw his head back and laughed. “I have always been intrigued by the idea that there might be holes in the universe – vacua, if you will – capable of swallowing a man whole, so that he vanishes without a trace. I have written several stories on the subject. I have already decided that – when my time comes to call it quits – I shall vanish into one of the holes in the universe, and leave no mortal remains. So when it came time for me to abandon my Tavistock residence – and my Phillimore identity – I fancied that it might be amusing to stage-manage such a vanishment. And then to watch the results from a distance, in the safety of my own persona.”

Sherlock Holmes shifted his posture on the bench. “Now I understand a detail which has baffled me these thirty years”, he nodded. “The weather in Warwickshire was fair for two weeks before Phillimore vanished, with no rain at all. Yet Phillimore somehow tracked mud into his own house, even though he stepped outside for only a moment. Had I not