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“I am not at liberty to discuss Mrs Bertram’s motives,” Holmes replied, coldly.

Minter re-appeared, pushing a tea-trolley. Holmes refused to partake and returned to the window. Feeling rather embarrassed, I joined Miss Abernetty in a cup of tea, but refused the seed-cake.

“Are you watching for Charles?” enquired Sabina, almost tranquilly. “He shouldn’t be long.”

She lingered over her tea, making desultory small talk with me. Instead of becoming impatient, Holmes in his expression grew grimmer. When at last a bell sounded somewhere in the house there was a gleam of irony in his eyes.

“I think your mother is ready to receive us. Shall we go up?”

With the strain on my nerves occasioned by our eerie walk through the fog, I fancied the dim passage had a clammy feel as if the fog had seeped into the walls. Sabina moved softly, almost stealthily before us until she came to the door of the sickroom.

“Mother, I’ve brought some gentlemen to see you.” She pushed open the door.

The shadowy figure in the four-poster bed hunched itself up on the pillows. Wisps of grey hair from under the frilled nightcap straggled over the forehead, eyes glared peevishly from a face grey with age and ill-health. Her hand came up from beside the bed, holding a walking-stick.

“What’s this, you know my orders. I won’t see anyone,” she shrilled at us, querulously. “Go away, all of you. Get out of my sight.”

“Mother, don’t upset yourself,” the daughter glided towards her, but was driven back by the flailing stick.

I will never forget the scene that followed; though I do not remember the words, the tone of the dreadful imprecations, the humiliating insults and cruelties that stripped the soul of our

companion bare have never left me. I felt a deep shame at being, however obliquely, the cause of Miss Abernetty’s discomfiture.

Throughout she was calm, but at last she turned to us and said in a low, tremulous voice. “Will that be all? Are you satisfied?”

Holmes turned abruptly and walked out of the room and I was fast on his heels. The strident voice followed us down the stairs. In the hall, Miss Abernetty faced us gravely. Her eyes looked large and dark in a face that had been drained of all its colour.

“Miss Abernetty, I owe you the profoundest of apologies and bid you good afternoon,” said Holmes. “Minter, my Ulster.”

The elderly butler was hovering by the front door.

“You are leaving,” she said, quickly. “Won’t you wait until my brother returns? Don’t you also owe him an apology?”

“Pray convey to him my regrets. Come, Watson, we must go.”

“At least allow me to send Minter down to the corner for a cab.”

“Thank you, no, we will return as we came – on foot.”

I smothered a groan as I struggled into my damp greatcoat and picked up my stick.

“That was an embarrassing exposure for Miss Abernetty,” I observed, when we had regained the square. “I hope you’re satisfied.” I could not suppress the note of censure that crept into my tone.

Holmes gripped my arm. “Not another word.”

We had reached the corner when he suddenly swung back. “Come, Watson, I want a word with Lady Abernetty.”

“What! Have you gone mad, Holmes?”

“Not I. Not as mad as that poor raving invalid we’ve just left. Come on, Watson, the chase is on, this way through the mews and around to the coach-house. Ah, just as I thought!”

A candle was burning within, visible through a dingy window. My companion flung open the door. A figure in nightdress and frilled cap gave a startled cry.

“The game’s up,” Holmes said, grimly, “Mr Charles Abernetty.”

Abernetty shrank back against the wall, his features contorted with fury under the grotesque make-up. “Damn you! I was brilliant. How could you possibly have found me out?”

“Indeed, you were comparable with the great Dan Leno. Let’s say there were other factors that led to your unmasking.”

Abernetty’s eyes skimmed past Holmes to the doorway. “No, Sabie, don’t!”

Sabina, equally as grim as Holmes, had materialized through the fog. She aimed a pistol at the detective’s head.

“Do you feel quite so clever now, Mr Sherlock Holmes? Don’t move,