After what happened at Grange-over-Sands I was thrown into the deepest depression. In the space of two months, my whole world had turned itself upside down, and my decision to sleep with Stephen firmly closed the door on the past, making it impossible that I should ever renew my old relationship with Mycroft.

I could no longer live in the flat that was really Mycroft's. Stephen had the freehold of some comfortable rooms in St James's, and he wished me to move into them with him. I was horrified that we should live so openly together, so we arranged that he should live on the floor above me. A narrow flight of back stairs, separate from those the servants used, gave him unobtrusive access to my bedroom, and Marie would say nothing to Roberts, Stephen's man, or the maids. After I had settled into my new quarters in the first week of February, Tubby Winstanley paid a call one tea-time, as a fog began to ease itself into the dusk. His visit was strictly business, and the proposition he made was more startling than the time when he put his hand on my knee under the table at Grange. Puffing on his meerschaum, he surveyed me for a moment, then, with no preliminary, he asked a direct question.

"Anna, how'd yer like to work in my Department?"

"As what, pray?"

"Agent, of course, like Joanna." He chuckled and drew noisily on his pipe. "No danger. Your task very simple - keep eye on Amazon Club for me."

"And what is the Amazon Club?"

"Club for ladies, situated not far from Lord's cricket ground. Deliberately away from heart of things, extensive grounds enable members practise games, exercises. Club provides opportunities enhance prowess of ladies physically and intellectually. Whole heap of feminist nonsense if yer ask me, but Department suspects club accounts bein' used to conceal proceeds of gigantic canal swindle Argentina some years ago. One or two society people involved in that, includin' high-rankin' member or members of Amazons. Hence askin' yer help. Wonderin' whether you an' Joanna would join, find out what yer can. No danger to selves, I repeat. Membership to be short-term."

He exhaled a cloud of pungent blue smoke.

"Ah, yes. Got other little job in mind too, longer term. It's keepin' eye on Holmes. D'yer think yer could oblige?"

"I'll join the Amazons," I said, "as long as their exercises and games are not too strenuous and as long as neither Joanna nor I are put into danger. But keeping an eye on Mr Holmes will be impossible. I have completely severed my connection with him."

"Yes, I know," said Tubby. "Dashed awkward, but must ask yer to do it. Yer see, Holmes loose cannon where women concerned. Don't wish rub salt in wound, Anna, but Joanna warned me last summer Holmes' eye rovin' in direction Lady Bywell. Foresaw result, got Joanna and Marie keep eye on yer. Hope yer don't mind, but yer definitely weren't yerself, especially at Grange-over-Sands."

An initial surge of anger at knowing I had been under observation by my own maid evaporated as I recalled my behaviour in the doctor's surgery when we thought Mycroft to be dead.

"I suppose I wasn't myself, but Mycroft did cause difficulties."

"Difficulties! Understatement, old girl. I had to fall in with his scheme of bein' dead. Yer see, Christmas Eve, when Richardson murdered, Holmes missed him through keepin' appointment with Lady B in cottage where he'd moved her for safety."

"I see," I said grimly. "You mean that Mr Richardson died because Mycroft put Lady Bywell before his duty."

"'Fraid so. Holmes had no business even invitin' her down."

"He claimed she'd more or less forced herself on him!"

"Whatever happened, Anna, he should have sent her away. Whole business too damned dangerous, but there we are. His weakness - attractive young women."

"Yes," I agreed, "and to get back to your request, Tubby, I should find it extremely distasteful to associate myself with Mycroft Holmes once more."

Stephen was most indignant that Tubby had even asked me to keep an eye on Mycroft, although he was less concerned about the Amazons.

"I know about the Argentine scandal," he told me. He had slipped down to my flat to spend the night with me. We were in bed and I was far more interested in the prospect of a night of love with him than in hearing about financial scandals in Argentina, so I stopped his mouth with my tongue and made it quite obvious to him that the time for talk had ended. By the time we fell asleep I had no further thoughts about Mycroft, but, despite my reluctance, events were to throw us together.

"Mam'selle, it is the Major again, but he has Mr 'Olmes with him. Shall I say that you are not in?"

I was sorely tempted, but reflected that Tubby must have had a very good reason to bring Mycroft, so I had them shown in.

"May we speak to your maid, Anna," said Mycroft before Marie could leave. "Marie, have you Mr Dundas's teeth?"

I thought I had misheard, but Marie went out and brought back a small packet of greaseproof paper.

"These are what you want, sir," she said, giving them to Mycroft.

I looked a volume of questions at her.

"Mam'selle, they are some false teeth that John - I mean Dr Watson - gave me. As a souvenir," she hurriedly added, handing me a newspaper cutting. "That explains everything, mam'selle."

"'A husband's cruelty to his wife'," I read. "What's this, Marie?"

"Mam'selle, it is the funniest thing. It is from a few years ago, and John gave it me before Christmas. I put it in the bottom of my work basket and forgot about it."

"Not as amusin' as yer might think, Marie," put in Tubby. "Can yer smell it, Holmes?"

Mycroft had unwrapped the teeth and was sniffing cautiously at them.

"Mr Dundas smokes a pipe," he said, "and the smell of stale tobacco is obvious. But mingled with it we have the faint but unmistakeably foul odour of cacodyl. Marie, have you ever handled these without their wrapping?"

"No, sir. I find them disgusting objects. I keep them only because John - Dr Watson, I mean - gave me them."

"Your mistress knew nothing of them. I fear she still does not, for even reading the cutting has told her little. Am I right, Anna?"

He was. I had glanced through the cutting. The husband, Mr Dundas, a respectable man of means, had caused his wife some slight injuries and much embarrassment by habitually removing his false teeth and hurling them at her across the table after meals. The wife, tiring of this behaviour, had petitioned for legal separation. 1

"John told me that Mr Sherlock had something to do with the case in 1890, mam'selle," said Marie, "but I do not know how it ended."

"In a separation, I suppose," was my answer, "if cruelty was proven, that is."

I studiously kept my gaze averted from Marie's, for I knew that if our eyes met we should disgrace ourselves in front of Tubby and Mycroft by laughing outright. I turned to Tubby, for I had decided to ignore Mycroft as much as possible.

"Tell me, Major, what is so important about these false teeth?"

Tubby looked at Mycroft.

"They are coated with cacodyl poison, Anna," said Mycroft solemnly. "Had either of you taken these out of their paper packet, merely handled them for a few minutes, and then touched your mouths, you would have gone down with a serious bout of internal unpleasantness. Had Mr Dundas put these teeth into his gums, he would have been dead within minutes."

Marie's eyes at last met mine, but in a stare of horror.

"Mam'selle, I might have handled them at any time. Why would John give me them?"

"Failed to smell the poison, Marie," said Tubby. "Won't know till we tell him. How did he get them, any idea?"

"Why yes, Major. Mr Dundas he gave them to John as a keepsake. He was one of John's patients, and John advised him to get some new teeth. Mr Dundas also gave John the newspaper cutting. The case it was for a brief while a cause celebre."

"Why," I asked, "should Mr Dundas coat his false teeth with poison? Was it a suicide attempt disguised as natural death to swindle his insurance company?"

"Not at all," said Mycroft. "Dundas had no intention of committing suicide, as far as I know. This was an attempt to murder him."

"Mon Dieu!" muttered Marie. "It could have ended up murdering Mam'selle Anna or me."

"Quite so," said Tubby. "Therefore Mr Holmes needs teeth, if yer don't mind, Marie. Beginnin's of case here, what, Holmes?"

"Indeed," said Mycroft, "but I have yet no notion of how to follow it up."

"Please take the teeth, sir," said Marie. "I never want to see them again."

"I hope, Marie, that you will not hold this against Dr Watson," I said anxiously.

"No, mam'selle, but when I next see him he will get a flea in his bonnet!"

"Yer've spoken to Dundas, Holmes?" said Tubby as he and Mycroft picked up their hats and canes.

"Not yet," said Mycroft, "but I shall arrange to interview him in a few days," and with that they took their leave.

Stephen heard of the incident from his man Roberts, who got it from the parlourmaid, who in turn got it from Marie. That evening he called, and no sooner were we alone than he had me in his arms, kissing me hungrily and holding me tight.

"My darling, what a dreadful story! What on earth was Watson thinking of, to give Marie those teeth?"

As I had given Marie the evening off, his question was unanswered.

"My own Anna," he continued, "you obviously need to be looked after. Let me take you for supper to somewhere quiet. In fact, let me surprise you with a new experience."

We went to a discreet little Italian restaurant in Soho and got a corner table. I asked Stephen about the new experience. He told me to be patient, and halfway through the meal a couple of waiters set up a large white screen at one end of the room.

"Have you heard of the kinematograph?" asked Stephen.

I had, but had not seen one. I understood it to be a device for showing pictures that moved somehow.

"So it is," said Stephen, "and the proprietor of this restaurant shows moving pictures on certain evenings after dinner. They're really lifelike, as you'll see."

"Pictures of what?" I asked.

"Oh, all sorts of things. Busy streets, railway trains coming into a station, farm workers in the fields – anything that takes the photographer's fancy."

The waiters, having set up the white screen, brought in a magic lantern which they connected to one of the electric lamps. A small party of ladies and gentlemen who had been dining by the window began to take a great interest in the proceedings, rearranging their seats to see the screen, and I suddenly recognised two old acquaintances, Sir Percival Blakeney, of the Diogenes Club, and his lady-friend, Miss Julia Nelson, an actress whom I had met some years earlier. Sir Percival recognised me at the same moment, bowed, and approached us. I introduced him to Stephen, and insisted that he introduce Julia, which he did.

"I have an interest in this, you know, Miss Weybridge," he said. "I believe it will supersede the drama as a form of art."

I remembered his aspirations as a dramatist.

"Percival believes he can write dramas for the kinematograph," added Julia with a smile.

"But have they discovered how to add voices?" asked Stephen.

"Pooh! A mere trifle," said Sir Percival. "The improvements being made in the gramophone will shortly lead to kinematographs with recorded voices and even music. Why, I understand that in France and Germany they're experimenting with colour photography. Once they marry that to moving pictures with recorded voices, the kinema – as some of us call it – will sweep the world. I said as much to Sir Henry Irving only the other day. Ah, but they're beginning."

He returned to his seat with Julia, while someone dimmed the lights. As the waiters served coffee, a man took up his place behind the magic lantern and began to turn a handle. Spidery-looking wheels whirred above and below the lantern, a powerful beam of electric light shot onto the white screen, and there began the most remarkable thing I had ever seen. Onto the screen flashed a large, flickering title, "Tom Merry, Lightning Cartoonist." The title vanished, and an artist appeared, actually moving and drawing a caricature of the Kaiser. He worked rapidly, completing it in seconds. He then drew Bismarck. The only sound was the whirring of the apparatus. 2

The wheels stopped, the operator removed them, we applauded, and babbled our astonishment and appreciation of what we had seen. Meanwhile, the operator fitted new wheels and threaded through the apparatus a long strip of glossy celluloid that dangled from the upper one. Once more the machine whirred into motion and new scenes appeared. Picture after picture flashed onto the screen. They were not coloured like magic lantern slides, but they moved. First came a scene of a crowded street, with foot-passengers walking about, then a view of shire horses plodding with hay waggons across a sunny field. Next was a harbour scene, then Hyde Park on a fine day.

"Why, good heavens, that's Mycroft!" I said, as his unmistakeable form rolled into view.

Mycroft was not the only person to be recognised on the screen. Someone at Sir Percival's table said, "Look, there's old Dundas."

While I was wondering if it was the Dundas of the false teeth, the scene changed again, this time to a racecourse. The photographer must have had his apparatus set up on the very course, for round the bend came the horses, their jockeys urging them on with the whip. They headed straight for the photographer, and some of the party at Sir Percival's table rose with cries of alarm and backed away. I must confess that I almost did the same thing, for the scene was so realistic, although eerily silent, that for a moment I feared that the horses would burst out of the screen and be upon us.

Then one of the women screamed.

"Oh come!" said Stephen impatiently. "There's no danger," he called, but the whole party rose, their attention no longer on the kinematograph but on their own table. One of their number, a stout middle-aged lady, lay slumped across the table, her head on the cloth, her coffee cup overturned. Someone turned up the lights, the kinematograph whirred into silence, there was a lot of shouting and rushing about by staff, and then none other than Dr John Watson hastened in. The lady was dead, without any doubt.