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‘Bryce Scobell,’ Sherlock said calmly.

‘We meet again,’ Scobell said in his curiously precise, curiously gentle voice. ‘Apologies. I know that my appointment was later on this afternoon, but I just could not wait any longer. Mr Crowe and his beautiful daughter have been on my mind, and on my skin, for quite some time now.’ He gazed at Sherlock. His eyes were so black that Sherlock couldn’t tell the pupil from the iris. ‘You caused me significant trouble yesterday. Two of my men were crippled by your actions.’

Sherlock looked along the line of Scobell’s men, but couldn’t see any casts or bandages.

‘Oh, you won’t see them now,’ Scobell continued. He had a small smile on his face. ‘Like horses, I have them put down when they are injured.’

‘Then why do the rest stay working for you?’ Sherlock asked. ‘If I were them, I wouldn’t take the risk.’ As he was speaking he let his gaze run up and down Scobell’s body, looking for something – anything – that might give him an edge if it came to a fight, or anything he could use to influence the man verbally, but there was nothing. There were no clues to anything on Scobell’s person. He might just as well have been a walking, talking mannikin.

‘They fear what will happen to them if they leave, of course,’ Scobell replied, ‘and I reward them well enough to compensate them for the risk. If there is one thing I have discovered about people it is this: nobody ever believes that they will die. Others around them, yes, but each person privately believes that they personally are invincible.’

Sherlock’s attention was caught by the golden skull on the top of the cane. The dark hollows of the eye sockets seemed to be staring at him. He thought he could see something on the top of the skull, a slot of some kind, but before he could work out what it was Scobell had lifted the cane up so that the end was pointing directly at Sherlock’s face. His finger moved slightly, pressing into the skull’s left eye socket, and a slim blade sprang out of the end of the cane. The point hung in space, half an inch from Sherlock’s right eye.

He felt sweat bead on his forehead.

‘There is,’ Scobell said, still in that horribly gentle voice, ‘no time for pleasantries and polite badinage, I fear. I am on a tight timetable, and there is something I have been promising myself for a few years now. Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold, but I have been waiting so long that my revenge has congealed on the plate.’ He gazed at Crowe. ‘You owe me. You owe me for the death of my wife and child.’

‘Let the boys go, Scobell!’ Amyus Crowe shouted from the dais. ‘They’ve done nothing to offend you. It’s me you want.’

‘On the contrary,’ Scobell replied, ‘they cost me several of my best men. I will have my revenge on them later, but first I will see to your beautiful daughter – not so beautiful when I have finished with her, I promise you – and then I will deal with you.’

Gahan Macfarlane stepped forward. ‘This is my place,’ he growled, ‘and you are a guest in it. I give the orders here.’

Scobell slowly let the end of the cane sink down to the floor. He pushed down on the golden skull, and the blade slid back into the cane.

Sherlock heard a click as it was caught by some kind of spring mechanism so that it was ready to jump out again when needed. His attention was still caught by the slot on the top of the skull. What was it for?

Scobell gazed calmly at Macfarlane. ‘I hold all the cards,’ he pointed out. ‘You have done nothing to offend me – yet – but whether you live to see another day depends on your making sure that you continue that way.’

‘You do not,’ Macfarlane roared, ‘give orders in my—’

Before he could finish the sentence, Scobell raised his free hand. One of the men behind him moved his crossbow slightly, and pulled the trigger. With a metallic twang the bow released, sending a bolt flying through the air. It hit Dunham in the centre of his chest. He stared at it for a moment in horror, then fell forward to his knees. He looked up at