Dinwoodie, the Senior Servant of the Diogenes Club, would have been astounded to learn of the secret cupboard behind the bookcase in my bedroom. One day in the summer of 1888 - Saturday June 9th, according to my notes - I lugged out the trunk that lay there, found my best theatrical wig and my gayest evening gown, brushed the wig down meticulously and, in the privacy of my bedroom, pressed out the creases in the dress. You must realise that I did all this wearing a gentleman's suit, in shirtsleeve order. I was twenty-three and lived in the Diogenes as a young gentleman, sharing rooms with Mycroft. I got away with my masquerade for years, since the basic rule of that club for the unclubbable was that no member should speak to another. The staff who usually served me were half-blind, half-witted or half-senile, no-one saw through my disguise, and I lived a dual life as a man and a woman. That night I was to attend a dinner party with Ellen Terry at 16 Tite Street, the home of Mr Oscar Wilde. Few people today can write his name without a sense of loathing - although I have always liked him - but in 1888 his vices were unknown to the world at large.

To get to the dinner party I changed in the very rooms where I now live and am writing this. They are Mycroft's, and in those days they were fitted out mainly as offices. He used them in connection with his Government work, which occasionally involved interviewing people and sometimes providing simple accommodation for a few days while arrangements were made for them to go overseas in secrecy and perhaps haste. I now suspect that he also used them as a rendezvous for his clandestine assignations with women.

Mycroft did not go to the dinner party. As he said, what was the use of being a founder member of the only club for the unsociable if he plunged into society at every opportunity? Besides which, his brother had asked him to produce some theory on the disappearance of Sir Simon Kenleigh, the railway millionaire, and he wanted a quiet evening to think. So, in both my choicest gown and a state of great excitement, I waited at the kerb with him until Ellen Terry arrived in a growler. Ellen, with her two marriages, her lovers and her two illegitimate children, was considered a little outré, even in the theatre world, but, oddly, Mycroft considered her a fit companion for me.

"Good evening, Mr Holmes," she said, drawing her veil aside. "What a pity you're not joining us. So this is where you live, Anna?" She gazed at the impressive façade of the block behind us which contained Mycroft's "other rooms", as we called them. "I should very much like to see your rooms some time."

I made a non-committal reply, but in truth her remark greatly perturbed me. Ellen was a good friend, and had taken me under her wing when I first worked at the Lyceum. She was the same age as Mycroft, and had always been to me as an elder sister. She knew I was Mycroft's mistress, and I supposed that she thought he had set me up in rooms. Naturally she knew nothing of my double life as Mr W H Dalziel. Now I must think of a way of either putting her off without causing offence, or arranging with Mycroft to invite her to the rooms. The trouble was, fitted out as offices with a barely-furnished bed-sitting room, they were hardly the abode of a young single lady. (We hadn't begun to call ourselves New Women then.) I made a mental note to seek Mycroft's help.

We drove through the evening streets to Chelsea, our driver taking things at a very lady-like pace, far removed from the terrors of a frantic drive with Mycroft. I was pleased to see Ellen wearing a dress in the "aesthetic" style, for I was similarly dressed. I hated the bustle, now going out of fashion, and we talked of a time when women would be allowed the freedom of trousers instead of having to hobble about in constricting gowns. I was a fervent enthusiast for trousers, and toyed with the idea of revealing all to Ellen.

"Mr Wilde is a great arbiter of taste in dress," said Ellen. "We shall ask for some opinions from him. He will be pleased that we are both wearing the aesthetic dress."

We drew up outside Mr Wilde's house where we could see a brilliant company assembling. Some were ascending the staircase to the drawing room, while others had wandered through the hallway to the study. Ellen was hailed from all sides, roundly kissed and hugged by some of our leading literary and theatrical figures, and led in triumph before Oscar Wilde, who came downstairs to greet her. She presented me, then turned to an extremely attractive woman.

"Mrs Langtry, my young friend Miss Weybridge."

I took her hand, overcome with awe, because I had already recognised the Jersey Lily. Fleetingly I wondered if she knew that not only did we share a profession, we also shared a lover, for I too had been the mistress of the Prince of Wales, albeit briefly. Mrs Langtry led us both into the study, brilliant in its red and primrose yellow, and, while we talked, she leaned against the desk which had belonged to Thomas Carlyle. The gentleman who took me into dinner turned out to be the poet Algernon Swinburne, a languid, drooping man with a good deal of long wavy hair. At the table, the conversation outshone even the silverware. Oscar Wilde dominated, as one would have expected, but Ellen and Mrs Langtry sparkled like crystal, and were the focus of attention of all the men. They would have attracted attention had they said never a word, for they were two of the noted beauties of the town. The talk never faltered, for as someone stopped, another would take up a new topic. Everyone was striving to be as brilliant as Mr Wilde, who easily outdid them all until a young gentleman said, "I see there has been a ghastly murder in Wimbledon."

"The whole of Wimbledon," said Wilde, "is a ghastly murder. It is a murder of good taste."

"A rather vulgar area," said the young man. "And the sort of place where vulgar crimes are committed."

"No crime is vulgar," said Wilde, "but all vulgarity is crime."

We laughed, but our thoughts were on the murder.

"Was it the murder outside the green-painted door?" said Mrs Langtry. "How horrible! I read about it in the evening paper. Is that where you read it?"

The young man nodded.

"I read about it in a number of papers," he said. "The body was headless, or practically so. Killed with an axe."

"How can a body be practically headless?" asked Wilde. "One is either headless or one is not. This indecision over whether one should be headless or not is entirely due to the modern decline in manners."

"Which can lead to murder?" said Mrs Langtry.

"Quite so, Lillie, if one has an axe to grind," replied Wilde.

Poor Mr Wilde! There was a little polite laughter, but he was no longer the centre of attention. The conversation took a grisly turn with everyone but himself avidly discussing every detail of the murder. The victim, a man in middle age, had been killed in a lane behind a large villa in a quiet part of Wimbledon. A patrolling policeman had discovered the body in the early hours of that day. No-one knew who the victim was, why he had been killed, or who had killed him. He was found lying in his own blood beside a green-painted door in a high wall which enclosed the garden of the villa.

"It's a case for that private detective fellow," said Swinburne. "That Holmes fellow."

"Miss Weybridge here knows his brother," said Ellen.

That made me the centre of attention for a little while, until I revealed that Mycroft was merely an auditor of Government books - his official post - and that I had never actually met Sherlock Holmes. I was immediately left on the outskirts of the conversation, while Swinburne, who had once met Mycroft's brother, held forth again.

"We shall see Mr Holmes solve it, I'm sure," he declared.

"Should we withdraw?" asked Mrs Langtry. She leaned across and stage-whispered to Ellen, "Poor Oscar's finding this an ordeal. Fancy being upstaged by a headless corpse!"

When we ladies withdrew, the conversation still revolved around the murder, and the gentlemen came in later still discussing it, except for poor Mr Wilde, who for once seemed quite lost. Ellen took pity on him and started talking to him about costume, which cheered him a little; but his sparkle had left him.

At a disgracefully late hour Mycroft called in a cab and took us home. We took Ellen to her door, a little stratagem that saved me from having to ask her to come and see my supposed lodgings. On the way we talked of the dinner party.

"Was there any conversation of interest?" asked Mycroft as the horse trotted easily along.

"The Wimbledon murder," I said.

"Ah, that one. It was in all the papers."

"Who was that gentleman who seemed so interested in it?" I asked of Ellen.

"A Mr Sickert, Anna. He's an artist, I believe." She turned to Mycroft. "They wanted to know if your brother will follow it up." "I doubt it. Sherlock has been through much strain lately."

We dropped Ellen off, and Mycroft lit a cigar and remained silent during the drive back. I laid my head on his shoulder contentedly and dozed until we reached his "other rooms". He went into the Diogenes while I let myself into the deserted rooms, changed by moonlight into the costume of Mr Dalziel, hurried with my valise across to the club, nodded to the sleepy Harris at his desk, and so upstairs.

Mycroft was already in bed, so I undressed and took my candle into his room with the excuse of seeking his help over the vexing problem of how to ask Ellen to the severely functional rooms that I was supposed to be occupying.

"Leave it to me," he said from the depths of his pillow. "You know, Anna, that gentleman's short night-shirt displays those splendid legs of yours to great advantage. You look almost seductive."

Putting the candle on his bedside cabinet, I slipped in with him. I wanted love, but Mycroft tended to be lethargic when not involved in a case, and, despite what he had said, he made no move to gratify my yearnings as I cuddled up to him.

"How have you spent your evening?" I asked him.

"Working on the Kenleigh disappearance, cutting out the articles on the Wimbledon murder, and marvelling at how the Press always buries the gold of fact under a mountain of the cheap glitter of sensation. I'll send the cuttings to Sherlock for his private reading. Now, Anna, speaking of private reading, I have here a translation of an Indian work called the Kama Sutra."

"Oh?" I yawned, for I had concluded that we were not to indulge that night in amorous play. As I wriggled into a more comfortable position against him, he reached for a small book on the bedside table.

"This is it. It will interest you," he said, passing it to me.

"Oh, Mycroft, I'll look at it tomorrow."

"Do spend a minute on it, my dear."

Yawning again, I turned a few pages, held the book to the light, and idly began to read. Within seconds I was sitting bolt upright, my face burning and my eyes wide. Although I had lived for a year or two in Paris and had read some racy novels there, until that moment I had never read anything in English such as I now saw.

The deer-woman, I read, has the following three ways of lying down: the widely opened position; the yawning position; the position of the wife of Indra. When she lowers her head and raises her middle parts, it is called the "widely opened position". At such a time the man should apply some unguent, so as to make the entrance easy. When she raises her thighs and keeps them wide apart and engages in congress, it is called the "yawning position". When she places her thighs with her legs doubled on them upon her sides, and thus engages in congress, it is called the position of Indrani and this is learnt only by practice.

"Interesting, don't you think? I fancy that you will be what the writer terms a deer woman, by the way."

I glanced at him in bewilderment and dipped into another page.

When the woman places one of her legs on her lover's shoulder, and stretches the other out, and then places the latter on his shoulder, and stretches out the other, and continues to do so alternately, it is called the "splitting of a bamboo". When one of her legs is placed on the head -

"Mycroft, on whose head, for heaven's sake?"

- and the other is stretched out, it is called the "fixing of a nail". This is learnt by practice only.

"I'll bet it is."

When a man enjoys many women altogether, it is called the "congress of a herd of cows."

"Good heavens, Mycroft! If anyone found this book you'd go to prison." "Quite so. I should therefore like you to keep it for me in that cupboard behind the bookcase in your room. You could put it at the bottom of your trunk."

"Along with my dresses? All right, but may I read it first?"

"Actually, I thought we might practise a little of it, my dear. This position, for instance - the bamboo - seems quite invigorating, judging by the description."

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Mycroft wished to indulge himself - and me - in activity which seemed almost like gymnastics. Not even Sarah Bernhardt, his first mistress, could have taught him what was between the covers of this book. Within minutes we were entangled, he gasping and I giggling, in an embrace which was to produce sensations such as I had never hitherto known. As I said in my account of the three suicide cases, I doubt whether any Englishwoman had experienced the delights in store for me.

He began by kissing me most tenderly, moving down to my breasts and caressing with his tongue so that I cried out with the rapture of it. Already I could not stop myself from thrusting my "middle parts" at him, but he teased me with fingers and tongue until I was writhing in an ecstasy. I placed my legs as the book described, and when he joined with me my own rhythm immediately matched his. My vigorous leg movements caused the ecstasy to reach its height and continue until I arched my back, almost in a swoon and aware of nothing but the flooding of bliss through my entire body.

Once we could do no more, we collapsed. But my mind was focused, not on the inimitable experience I had just enjoyed, but on a single question, for his sudden energy in bed meant one thing.

"Mycroft, is there a case in the offing?"

"Mm," he grunted, and fell asleep.

I took that as an affirmative, and fell asleep myself, to dream of a herd of cows.

In the morning I tackled Mycroft again about the prospect of a case.

"There is a case," he said as we dressed, he in his room and I in mine. We always had to be careful not to oversleep, at least not in the same bed, for at seven precisely every weekday morning Henderson, the one-eyed junior porter, usually came in to see to the sitting-room fire, and at ten he came to clean the rooms.

As the Diogenes still employs no women at all, the porters and waiters carry out the daily fire-lighting, cleaning and dusting. Mycroft had given orders for no fire during the summer months, but Henderson, an old soldier, was most particular about everything else. Our rooms were entirely free of the acrid smell of coal soot which is so much a part of London life. Polish gleamed everywhere, on furniture, brass fittings, and silverware, while our books and the priceless contents of Mycroft's china cabinet were carefully dusted. The case clock was wound every week and corrected every day. As it was Sunday, he would be in to see only to the clock.

"You will keep that book well hidden, Anna? I should not like Henderson or Dinwoodie to see it."

"It would give old Dinwoodie a seizure. But tell me, Mycroft, what's afoot? What is the case? Have you solved the Kenleigh mystery?"

"Oh, that. He's obviously gone as a tramp or a sailor or something of the sort. He's an eccentric, and such men have their little whims. No, the new case is murder, Anna. Most foul, as the saying is."

"Not the case we talked about last night?"

"The same. Sherlock is not interested, having the Kenleigh case on hand, so Straightfellow called here last night while you were out and is coming later this morning to give me further details."

"Mycroft! You said nothing last night."

"I was more interested in pursuing the principles of the Kama Sutra than in a fairly commonplace murder."

"Well, it may be commonplace, but it was in all the papers, and it dominated the conversation at Tite Street. I say, though," I went on, "if anyone had come in upon us last night while we were trying out those gymnastics, even the most gruesome murder would have been driven off the front pages. Does this necktie suit me? I bought it last week."

"A little garish, but if you're putting on that light summer suit for church then it should do. Let me adjust it through the ring. There. We must find some small and obscure public school for Mr Dalziel to have attended, so that you can wear the old boys' tie. Turn round. Those trousers are a little tight. They show off your bottom too much."

I smiled and smoothed down the material. "You'll be happy with that, I should imagine. In any case, the jacket will cover it when I put it on, so it should be all right for a place of worship."

"Where did you get that suit?"

"From my usual supplier, that theatrical costumier in Paris who used to make up my male impersonation costumes."

"I thought it looked a little Frenchified."

"I daren't go to a London tailor. They'd measure me in embarrassing places. My Parisienne thinks I'm still performing and fortunately my measurements haven't changed."

"Anna, what is that scent you are wearing?"

"Scent? I'm wearing no scent. Oh, it's this tie. It has a slight scent of - of - "

"Bergamot."

"It must be from the paper it was wrapped in. Some new trick of Gieves, perhaps. It will wear off."

"Don't stand too close to Straightfellow. He prefers it that men smell like men."

"Pooh! Sweat, spirits and stale tobacco? I'll keep to bergamot, thank you."

We went to matins at St James's. I never went to Holy Communion dressed as Mr Dalziel, for I did not think it right. At Easter, Whitsun and Christmas I went dressed as myself and took the sacrament with a clear conscience.

The scent of bergamot had faded by the time we returned from matins and met Straightfellow in the Strangers' Room.

"Good of you to see me, gents," said the tall Welshman, uncoiling himself from an armchair as we entered. His hair was a little darker and glossier then. "Do you know of this case, Mr Dalziel?"

I knew something from the dinner party, of course, but in my persona of Warren Hastings Dalziel it was safer to know next to nothing.

"Holmes has mentioned it, Inspector. I gather it's a bad business, what?"

"Very bad, sir. Chap murdered with an axe or something of the sort. Left horribly mutilated in a back lane in Wimbledon. Who he was, we don't know, for there was nothing on the body to tell us. No pocket book, letters, card case, nothing."

"You said last night you found none of those things lying nearby. Do you think they were removed?"

"I don't think so, Mr 'Olmes, because we found sovereigns and banknotes in his pockets. Any thief committing murder would have taken them along with everything else."

"Unless the murderer intended to take only things which could identify him. What about that watch you found on the body?"

"Got it here, Mr 'Olmes. Gold half hunter, case inscribed. Also a gold cigarette case with monogram."

Mycroft produced a small pocket lens and, opening the watch, examined it carefully. He then turned to the cigarette case.

"Both inscribed with the letter G. That could mean anything. Through my lens I see pawnbroker's marks scratched inside both the watch cover and in the cigarette case, under the rubber band that keeps the cigarettes secure. Black Sobranies, I see. Six out of ten remaining. I suggest that you send someone round the pawnbrokers until you find whoever took these in. That will surely give you a name."

"That's the way forward, Mr 'Olmes, if we get the true name."

"Now, some further details, if you please, about the victim, apart from what we can deduce, of course. That is, that he was relatively prosperous but experienced periods of poverty. The gold watch and the cigarette case suggest the prosperity, and the pawnbroker's marks the poverty. A gamester, perhaps? A small stockbroker? His tastes in cigarettes was exotic. Is there a possibility that he was a foreigner? Middle aged, you said last night?"

"Yes, sir, a fairly tall man, well built, grey hair, clean shaven except for a moustache, wearing evening dress, silk hat, cane, patent leather shoes."

"Had he walked along the lane or alighted from a cab?"

"That we don't know, sir."

"Makers' labels on the clothing?"

"No idea, sir."

"Tut tut. Most remiss, Straightfellow. An examination of the tailors' labels could possibly establish the gentleman's nationality. Had he any connection with any of the houses in the neighbourhood?"

"No-one knew him, sir."

"Which way was he going?"

"That we couldn't tell either, sir. He was lying facing the door."

"Had someone come out of the door?"

"I don't think so. I did try the door, but it was locked. Bolted, too, I should say. I think we can eliminate the door from the investigation."

"Anything at all on the ground?"

"Just these, sir."

The inspector produced three cigarette ends.

"Same as what he had in the case, sir. Black."

"So he stood around smoking for some time?"

"That's right, sir, which suggests an assignation of some sort, but we found no footprints apart from his. Therefore it looks like no-one turned up to meet him, apart from the murderer, of course."

"You found his footprints, you say. So the ground was soft enough for prints?"

"Right, sir, and I did look about carefully. But that clue you've given me about the cigarette case and the watch is the one to follow."

"And the tailors' labels, Straightfellow. Do not neglect them. In the meantime, perhaps Dalziel and I could visit the scene of the murder?"

"Of course, gents, and I'll see to this business about the labels and the cigarette case right away. The pawnbrokers and tailors will be closed today, but some of them live over their premises. And the watch. A watchmaker could tell me whether it was foreign, couldn't he?"

"Excellent, Straightfellow. And while you are about it, try a goldsmith for the origins of the cigarette case. Now, the address, if you please."

The inspector scribbled the address for Mycroft on a scrap of paper and hurried out. We followed, and I steeled myself for a drive of terror. Yet the cab journey to Waterloo was not as bad as I feared, for we became entangled in Sunday traffic coming from various churches and not even the half sovereign that Mycroft held out to the driver could make any difference. At a reasonably sedate pace we trotted across Westminster Bridge to Waterloo and thence onto the train to Wimbledon.

A hackney took us from Wimbledon Station to the High Street. Less than ten years ago, Wimbledon was not as much built over as it is now. We turned off the main road into one which was rural in its appearance. I enjoyed the fresh country air, which seemed a hundred miles away from the perpetual smoke and soot of London. Leaning back in my seat, I closed my eyes and basked in the sun coming through the window until we halted and a voice said, "Sorry, sir."

We were at the entrance to a back lane and a portly police constable had stopped us. Mycroft leaned out of the window.

"Sorry, sir. Can't allow no-one down here for the time being, sir."

"Inspector Straightfellow of Scotland Yard sent us here, constable. Here is his note. Incidentally, I perceive that you have been here some time, and I advise you not to smoke your pipe where your sergeant might catch you."

The rubicund face of the constable expressed astonishment.

"Here! How did you know about my pipe?"

"You have twice knocked it out on that fence post beside you. Navy Cut, I see, from the dottle. Yet you yourself were in the Army before you joined the Force. You have a brother in the Navy, perhaps, who supplies you?"

The constable's mouth was by now hanging open.

"Here, how much more do you know about me? Inspector Straightfellow can't have told you, since he don't know more than my name and number. Who are you?"

"My name is Holmes, constable."

"Gaw! They've got you on the case, have they, sir? The other gentleman'll be Dr Watson?"

Mycroft had his back to me, but I saw his neck turn scarlet and his shoulders stiffen.

"Yes," he said in a strangled voice, "it is Dr Watson. Now will you let us through? I was torn away from my violin practice for this, and the effects of my last injection of cocaine will shortly wear off."

"Cocaine, sir?" said the constable. "I know nothing of that. I did read that Study in Scarlet of yours, Dr Watson. Very clever, the way you solved that one, Mr Holmes." "Well, I should appreciate it if you would allow me to begin an attempt to solve this case, constable. We can walk up to where the body was found. No, there is no need to come with us. Remain at your post. Wait for us, driver."

We walked up the sunlit lane, the constable's hushed voice following us as he talked to the driver.

"Here, how did he know I'd been in the Army? I can see that bit about the pipe now, but the rest?"

"Well," I said. "How did you know about his time in the Army? It sounds as though you were right. Was it a lucky guess?"

"I never guess, Anna. He has an air of military service about him which is unmistakeable. The way he almost crashed to attention before speaking to us, the way he held his hands and his general bearing betokened a little more than the discipline of police training. Also, he has not been long in the Force, for his uniform looks new. The mass of overlapping boot prints in the mud showed me how long he had been there. The brother being in the Navy was something of a step in the dark, I admit. Someone is getting him Navy tobacco and the likelihood is a relative."

"Talking of brothers, he seems to be an admirer of your brother, which was most convenient for us, don't you think?"

"Convenient, I agree, but extremely irritating. Here we are at the door. Now, what have we here? A solid oak door, painted green, inward opening, set in a high brick garden wall, nine feet if it's an inch, topped with broken glass. The garden wall runs almost the length of the lane with no other door or gate in it. Street lamps at intervals, but none immediately by us. Another high wall on the other side of the lane, with no doors or gates in it at all. A wealthy area, by the look of it, Anna. Ah! Another constable at the other end of the lane, see? Things may be relatively undisturbed, then."

Mycroft tried the door handle.

"Fixed solidly." He pushed at top and bottom. "No give. Locked and bolted, as Straightfellow said."

He bent down and peered at the ground for a while, then, with a grunt and a heave, squatted and looked closely at the mud at the threshold. Next he took his lens from his pocket and examined the jamb.

"This is excellent, Anna. The police have not investigated the door at all apart from trying the handle. There are some boot prints, probably Straightfellow's, as they are in his size. Here, though, where I am pointing, is half of a smaller footprint at the very threshold. The print of the heel is, of course, on the other side of the door. That in itself proves that it has been opened. Here, about ten feet away, we see where the murdered man was struck down."

He inspected the ground carefully.

"Here is where he lay. There is a patch of arterial blood still on the road and part of a footprint, which is no good to us. He smoked three cigarettes so he must have been here for about half an hour. If we walk a little this way up the lane - yes, prints of shoes, size eight. He came from this direction. Ah! A flattened cigarette butt in the middle of a police bootprint. The fourth Sobranie, not more than half smoked. Let us walk a little further, for I must try to ascertain what he was doing in this lane at night. Had he come from the station? Can one get to and from the station in that direction? Perhaps, for here are the wheel marks and hoof prints of a cab coming from the other end of this lane. Here he alights. The cab continues its journey, that is, in the direction from which we have just come. Now why should a man get out of a cab in the middle of a back lane with only one door in the vicinity, and that locked but capable of being opened?"

"To meet someone, as the inspector suggested?"

"Quite so. Therefore we must look for a second set of footprints. Yet there are none. Let us walk back the way we came. Our victim alighted alone, and walked alone down to the door, throwing away a cigarette butt only half smoked."

I gave a little excited jump.

"He was meeting a woman, Mycroft! He threw away the butt because he expected her to be waiting for him and he wanted to kiss her!"

Mycroft halted and stared at me.

"My word, Miss Weybridge, you excel yourself. Yet his lady friend was not waiting, for he smoked three more cigarettes. Then the door opened, for here is where he turned to face it."

"The lady friend?"

"Presumably. Yet I see no satisfactory prints coming from the door, just that half print on the threshold and the partial print a few feet away. But that is so poor that it could belong to anyone, even Straightfellow."

"Perhaps someone spoke from the doorway without coming out?"

"Possibly. Let us go round and find the front of this house. I think a visit is in order."

We walked back to the hackney and asked both the policeman and the driver about the house which stood on the other side of the wall.

"Yes, sir," said the driver. "I can tell you a bit about that house. Cook and Burrow Villa, it's called, sir. Built by a gentleman from Australia, a Mr Hewlett, about fifty year ago."

"Who lives there now?"

"Mr Hewlett's grandson, Mr Oliver Hewlett. Keeps himself to himself, as far as I know. Inherited all his grandfather's money and his father's too. Lives with his daughter."

We ascertained the way to the front gate. The house was set well back from the road. Our investigations along the back lane had suggested how large its grounds were. It was the sort of structure that bore out Oscar Wilde's joke about Wimbledon. Turrets sprouted from half-timbered walls, while battlements mingled with Gothic arches and Greek columns. The nameplate read "Kookaburra Villa".

"While asserting his Antipodean identity," remarked Mycroft, "Mr Hewlett remained ignorant of architectural styles."

"What does the name mean?" I asked.

"A kookaburra is a noisy Australian bird also known as the laughing jackass. Let us see who is at home."

Prolonged ringing at the doorbell eventually produced a dark, handsome woman in a housekeeper's apron.

"Mr Holmes?" she said.

It was one of the very few occasions on which I have seen Mycroft taken aback, even momentarily. His recovery was swift.

"That is right. I am Mr Holmes. This is - er - "

"Dr Watson," she said. "I must say, Doctor, you're much younger than I imagined, and you, Mr Holmes, are somewhat fuller in the figure than I thought."

I bowed, more to conceal my embarrassment than anything else. Although her tone was clear and precise, her accent was not English. It aroused memories, and my mind began to work rapidly on her origins. I scrutinised her face. Those high, wide cheekbones, for instance. That jet-black glossy hair.

"I expect you're able to deduce how I knew who you were."

She said it as a statement, but also as a challenge, looking Mycroft straight in the eye and standing foursquare on the threshold as if to bar his way until he answered.

"My dear madam, it is simplicity itself. The gardener had it from the policeman and told you."

She, in her turn, was somewhat taken aback.

"You are very perceptive, Mr Holmes."

"It is my business to be. As An - er - Dr Watson and I were walking down the lane, I noticed a man looking at us over the wall, presumably from a ladder. The pruning saw in his hand indicated his occupation. He must have made good speed from that part of the wall to the house."

"There you are not as perceptive as you think yourself, Mr Holmes," she replied with a toss of the head. "The gardener's cottage has a telephone installed."

"Indeed?"

"Mr Hewlett is very keen on the latest advances in science."

"And keen on spending his money, if he can afford to install a telephone for his gardener."

"It is only for messages to the house and the stables. It is not connected to our outside line."

"And does Mr Hewlett rely much upon it?"

"Mr Hewlett likes to be kept informed of who is calling or loitering in the vicinity."

"Has he been informed of our visit?"

"No, Mr Holmes, for my master is not at home. I should have thought you would have found that out from the policeman."

"One normally asks the domestic staff. However, we should be extremely glad of a chance to view the gardens. Perhaps the gardener would be kind enough to show us?"

The housekeeper inclined her head and took us round to the back of the house. As we turned the corner of the building, a beautiful garden appeared before us. A huge expanse of close-cut lawn, bright with a scattering of daisies in the sun and shaded here and there by cedars and more exotic trees, stretched the entire length of the garden. At the end was a wall which, the housekeeper told us, bounded the kitchen garden. As we looked about us, I became aware of a small furry creature basking in the sun in the fork of a strongly scented tree nearby.

"A koala bear," said Mycroft. The housekeeper nodded, and at that point the gardener joined us, introduced himself as Williams, and the housekeeper excused herself. I heard her speak to someone in the house as she went in through the back door, and what she said left me open-mouthed. Williams was in close attendance, however, and I could not say anything to Mycroft.

Williams took pains to expound on the beauties of the garden. It was certainly superbly laid out. Mr Hewlett senior had planted many Australian species, and his grandson kept the little colony of koala bears which lived in the garden in the summer.

"Winter we keep 'em indoors, sir," said Williams, smoothing down his grizzled beard. "Dreadful difficult to keep 'em alive. Same with these eucalyptus trees. Can't move them, of course."

We moved slowly through the garden. Mycroft was growing visibly impatient to get into the kitchen garden, for it was now obvious that there the green-painted door was to be found. Meanwhile Williams continued his lecture.

"But it isn't all Australian plants. Look over there. A lovely shade of blue, them geraniums, ain't they, sir?"

He pointed to something behind a shrub and out of my field of vision.

"What? Oh, ah, yes," said Mycroft. His tone warned me that something was amiss, but, since he ushered me ahead of him, I had no opportunity to notice anything. We passed through into the kitchen garden which was surrounded by the high red brick wall which separated it from the road.

"A fairly new house, this," said Mycroft, gazing at the garden wall. "Yet these bricks, now - last century? They are the very shallow type not used today."

"William and Mary's reign, sir," answered the gardener. "You see, this house stands on the site of a much older dwelling, so this garden wall is very old indeed, although it replaced something even older. And that door you're looking at ain't much newer. That was last repaired in the year of the great Chartist upheaval, and old Mr Hewlett who built the house nailed it up, and it's never been opened since. There, you can see the heads of the nails all rusted over."

"Afraid of Chartists, was he?"

"That I don't know, Mr Holmes, but the door's never been used in my time here."

"But it has been repainted?"

"Oh, yes, sir. The last time was by me, the year of Rorke's Drift."

"Almost ten years? It has lasted remarkably well."

"Now you come to mention it, sir, I was thinking not long ago that it has lasted well. I was going to paint it this spring, but all it needed was a wash down."

"A nice shade of green, don't you think, Dal - Watson?"

"Beg pardon, sir, but that door's actually brown."

It was a lovely dark green, and I was about to say so, when Mycroft touched my arm.

"Of course it is. It was the sunlight playing full on the surface which confused me. However, we cannot keep you from your work, Williams. Good afternoon. Come, Watson."

Mycroft walked away in the energetic manner which signified the rising excitement of a case, swishing his cane at a nettle. I anticipated an active night with the Kama Sutra and hurried to keep up with him as we passed through the kitchen garden, the flower garden, and so down the drive and out into the road.

"Is there something wrong with your eyes?" I asked. "That door was dark green."

"Daltonism, or colour blindness, is rarely found among gardeners, my dear. But I suspected that Williams suffered from it when he described some bright purple pelargoniums as being blue. Did you not notice?"

"I couldn't see them. There was a shrub in the way and I couldn't see over it."

"Just as well. You might have blurted out that they were purple and caused an argument, for I do not think he knows of his handicap. The colour-blind frequently do not. That was why I forestalled you when he mentioned the colour of the door. It may well have been brown when he painted it in '79, but since then it has been repainted, and, what is more, it was first removed from its hinges."

"How can you tell? I could tell it had been repainted, because it was in far too good a condition to be otherwise, but removed from its hinges?"

"My dear, when it was repainted some of the paint ran. But it ran apparently horizontally across the line of the boards. Since that would have been impossible had the door been repainted in situ, then it follows that it was removed and painted while laid lengthways against the wall. There was a touch or two of green paint on the brickwork where the door was laid. The spots of green would be invisible to Mr Williams."

"But what about the rusty old nails?"

"Obviously removed and replaced. Since that would cause more trouble than using new ones, and since the door could just as easily have been repainted in situ, we must infer the reasons for removing and repainting it, then replacing the old nails."

We walked on in silence for a little while.

"Yes? And the reasons?" I asked, as our cab and the constable came into view.

"To replace the hinges, Anna. The person who repainted the door wished to replace the hinges, but to conceal the fact that he had done so."

"I still don't see why."

"The door had not been opened for forty years and the original hinges were rusted up. Whoever replaced the hinges wished to open the door easily and, I suspect, silently. The hinges were well oiled and greased, although a closer inspection was not possible under the eye of Williams. However, I did observe that the bolts, although rusty, had been greased, drawn back and shot again. I also observed the rear half of that footprint on the threshold."

"Therefore someone used the door without Williams knowing."

"Or anyone else in the house."

"But wait a moment, Mycroft. Anyone using the door would have to pull out all the rusty nails every time, wouldn't they? And then hammer them back in."

"Not if the nails had been cut through with a hacksaw."

"I see. The nails are just for show; they aren't keeping the door shut. Williams thinks the door's nailed up."

"And presumably the rest of the domestic staff think the same. But someone is using that door, Anna, and that person is the murderer."

We fell silent as we passed the constable and our cab driver, still chatting, and turned into the lane once more.

"The murderer comes out of the door, commits the crime, goes back in," I said. "The police arrive, assume that the door cannot be opened, and direct their inquiries elsewhere than this house. Am I right?"

"You are, my love, and that is precisely how I see the way in which this murder was committed."

"But, Mycroft, how would the murderer know that his victim was on the other side of the wall? It's nine feet high."

"Very simple with a ladder, Anna, and there was one lying nearby. There is also a line of street lamps in the road which would enable the murderer to scout for his victim. The door, conveniently, lies between two lamps and is therefore in shadow after dark. But here we are outside it again. Yes, quite so. The half footprint, and even a little running of paint horizontally across the boards, you see. I did not observe that the first time."

He rubbed his hands in a satisfied way.

"This is excellent progress. And I am glad I saw that footprint before it begins to rain, which it is threatening to do. In fact, I can feel a drop or two now. A brisk walk to the cab should get us there before it starts in earnest."

"By the way," I said, suddenly remembering. "That woman, the housekeeper. She speaks Cheyenne."

"You understand it?"

"No, but I recognise it."

"Whom did she speak to?"

"Couldn't see."

"I thought I heard her speaking in a foreign tongue, but the gardener was saying something at the time. Well, this certainly adds to the interest of Kookaburra Villa. Cheyenne, you say. America now, what?"

He set off to the cab at a cracking pace. I knew then that we would split the bamboo that night.