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“What was that talk last night about Sherlock Holmes and a painting?” I enquired. “It seemed to embarrass some of your colleagues.”

“A number of the older fellows are certainly still troubled by the episode even after all these years,” Hungerford mused, directing his gaze along the river. “I must say that surprises me rather.”

“But what was it about?” I almost shouted in my exasperation. “Old Blessingham called it Holmes’s first case yet I have never heard of it.”

Hungerford smiled at my impatience. “Well, Holmes was obviously an honourable man. The people over at New College enjoined him to secrecy on the matter and he faithfully kept silence.”

“But surely there’s no need to maintain the mystery any longer,” I urged.

“I suppose not. It was really nothing more than a storm in an academic teacup; and yet in a closed little world like ours such incidents do tend to assume greater importance than they merit.”

“Look, Hungerford,” I said, “you can tell me the story. We doctors are able to keep confidences, you know.”

Thus prompted my distant cousin related the story which, with a few emendations and name changes (made to honour my side of the bargain) and with additional details furnished later by Holmes himself, I can now set before the public.

It all began, as far as Holmes was concerned, at Paddington station. It was the autumn of 1873 and he had just enrolled at Grenville College after a year or two at Trinity in Dublin. On this particular late afternoon he was returning to Oxford after a day spent in the British Museum Reading Room. He had selected an empty, first-class smoking compartment and was looking forward to a quiet journey in the company of a recent dissertation on alkali poisons derived from plants in the Americas. The train made its first clanking convulsion preparatory to departure when a distraught figure appeared on the platform and grabbed the door handle. With a sigh of resignation Holmes leaped to his feet and helped a young man with a flapping topcoat into the compartment.

As Holmes slammed the door and the train gathered speed the stranger collapsed onto the seat opposite, spreading a pile of books and papers and other belongings out beside him. “Thank you, sir, thank you,” he panted.

“Not at all. I perceive that you have had a particularly harassing afternoon.” Holmes surveyed a young man in his late twenties of startlingly pale appearance. Even though flushed with exertion, his cheeks were as though drawn in pastels. His hair was the colour of white sand and the eyes that peered through thick-lensed spectacles were of the lightest blue. “It is always aggravating to mistake the time of one’s train and then to have one’s cab stuck in traffic – quite wretched.”

The other man leaned forward, mouth open in astonishment. “You cannot possibly … Are you some kind of spirit who consorts with mediums?”

Now it was Holmes who was momentarily nonplussed. “Do you mean am I a medium who consorts with spirits?”

“That is what I asked, sir. If you are I must tell you straight out that I don’t disapprove of such dabbling in forbidden waters … no, not at all.”

Holmes laughed. “Then let me set your mind at rest. I am a student of very terrestrial sciences. There was nothing other-worldly about my observations. As to your mistake about train times, I simply perceived that your Bradshaw was out of date.” He pointed to the bulky Bradshaw’s Railway Guide which lay among the stranger’s papers. “This particular train has been departing ten minutes earlier since the end of September.”

“To be sure; to be sure,” the other muttered, “but your reference to the traffic?”

“Even simpler, sir. It has been raining lightly for the past ten minutes yet only the upper part of your clothing is wet. Clearly you were obliged to leave the protection of your cab before reaching the station. That you did so in some haste is evidenced by the fact that, having paid the driver, you are still clutching your purse in your hand.”

“Remarkable,” said the stranger, sitting back in the seat. “You are obviously a very observant