"You knew all the time? You knew he was alive?" I jerked my head free of Mycroft's grasp and glared at him.

"I nearly had your ear off there."

"Never mind that! You knew he was alive? I always wondered why you showed so little emotion over his death."

For a week I had brooded about Sherlock's revelation to me that Mycroft had known him to be alive. When Mycroft decided to cut my hair we had argued about how much to take off, and things had blown up from there. Mycroft was now on the defensive.

"I didn't know that he was in London and perpetrating all that nonsense with the brass idols. His last letter was from Khartoum, from where he was going to France. I sent his allowance to Montpelier, and as far as I knew he was still there. Now keep your head still so that I can finish."

"His allowance?"

"I sent him regular amounts of money."

"You mean when I was sitting with you in this room, after Dinwoodie brought that package, you knew all the time - "

"Not all the time, no. To begin with, I believed him to be dead. But between Watson's wire and his letter, I had a brief letter from Sherlock himself that set my mind at rest. Naturally, I had to keep up the pretence." 1

"But not with me, surely. Mycroft, we've lived together for years. I've had your child - you -"

The tears welled up, as they often did when I thought of poor little William, dead for over a year now.

"You didn't trust me."

I buried my face in my hands and sobbed.

"Now now, my love."

Mycroft put down the hair clippers and embraced me, but I didn't respond. I was shaken by learning that he had not trusted me with such important information.

"I thought we meant more to each other," I sniffed, wiping my eyes with the sheet that was around my shoulders to catch the hair clippings.

"You know how much you are to me," replied Mycroft, "but I saw no reason to burden you with the knowledge that Sherlock was alive. I kept his old rooms and his papers in order, but Mrs Hudson thought I was doing it out of sentiment. No-one, apart from Moran, knew. And I gather from Sherlock that he said nothing even to Watson in case he let slip the information. I did no more with you. In fact, when Jedediah Spruce burst in on us I almost let it slip myself. Now, dry your eyes and let me finish this job."

"And that's another thing. I told you don't want to look like a convict! You're still clipping it down to the bone, you brute!"

"Just a little shorter than you had it, my dear. We don't want you looking effeminate. People talk."

"Mycroft, if you think about it, I can't be anything other than effeminate."

"But there's no need to cause people to look twice, Anna. W. H. Dalziel has acquired a reputation as a man of action, not a concert violinist. Too many people have realised that you're a woman," went on Mycroft. "Mrs Winstanley, who is quite safe. Watson, who is also safe. Moran, who is a danger as long as he's at large. But it's simply a matter of time before Sherlock sees through your disguise, as he will. He could easily call unexpectedly to consult me, and if he should see you, he'll realise what's going on here."

"And you'd rather he didn't know?"

"Wouldn't you? The fewer who know, the better. We run enough risk as it is. If it got out that a woman was living here disguised as a man, the club would collapse in the scandal. Your name and mine would be dragged through the gutter, and I should lose my post in Whitehall. If that should happen, then Her Majesty's Government would be the worse for it."

"Do you really mean that?"

"Of course. As you know, Anna, at times I am myself the Government, because of my ability to pigeon-hole in my mind all the disparate pieces of information about government activity. Frequently, ministers and civil servants need to understand how items of information from one Department affect another. I supply the links, as you know. If Sherlock sees you as Dalziel, there will be another who knows and the risk of exposure will increase."

"For where?"

"Those extremely comfortable rooms of mine just opposite this club. You could live there as yourself, you know."

"But they're offices that you use from time to time!"

"They can easily be fitted up for living. I could keep one room as a study."

"And I'll live there with you?"

"I should naturally have to spend some time here, since I am one of the founders. But I would be able to sleep at the rooms on occasion."

"So what you mean is that it's time that I left the Diogenes?"

I pondered.

"Perhaps you're right, Mycroft. I'm thirty this year. I'm losing my youth. I can't go on being Mr Dalziel for ever. My figure is filling out - it's all right, I'm not expecting again. But I'm beginning to look more like a woman even when I'm dressed as a man. And marriage is out of the question, isn't it?"

Mycroft turned away.

"Anna, Anna. If we could, I would have married you years ago. But my work at the Government Solicitor's - "

"Damn your work! It's just an excuse and you know it."

I folded my arms and submitted in silence to the rest of the barbering.

"Stop sulking," said Mycroft after a while.

"I'm not sulking," I replied perfectly reasonably. "I just wish to know what my future will hold. Am I to live here as a man, which I'm getting sick of doing, or am I to live in rooms as your - well, you know what Colonel Moran called me - that? Because there seems to be no other option for me, does there? Especially after what you've just told me about Sherlock."

Mycroft snipped on in silence. If, after all, he would not marry me a couple of years earlier when I was having his child, then I could expect nothing from him now. I was angry with him over the Sherlock business. He could have trusted me, I felt. I recalled the occasions when he had concealed his knowledge that Sherlock was alive. There was, for instance, the time that we got a letter from Colonel Moran threatening Mycroft, Sherlock and myself.

"Moran knew about Sherlock?"

"Of course. It was he who tried to brain Sherlock with rocks at the Reichenbach Falls."

"You covered up well over that letter," I said. "You didn't blink an eye. You just said something about his twisted mind."

"I had to think quickly, my dear."

I was silent for a while.

"Perhaps the rooms would be best," I said at last.

"I don't want to lose you, you know, Anna," he said as he folded away the sheet that had been round my shoulders.

"You're not going to, damn you," I said and, rising from the chair, I buried my head in his chest. For a little while we stood silent, holding each other, until a knock at the door broke us apart.

It was the club servant, Dinwoodie, with a note.

"Dr Watson is downstairs, gentlemen," he quavered.

He, at least, would never know the truth about Mr W. H. Dalziel. The thought that Dalziel was anything but the gentleman he seemed would never enter the head of the half-senile Dinwoodie.

"H'm," said Mycroft, reading the note. "Interesting. Thinks he's found a murder. Very well, Dinwoodie. Mr Dalziel and I will be down in a few minutes. Put the Doctor in the Strangers' Room."

As the old man tottered away, Mycroft turned to me.

"Come, this will give you something to get your teeth into."

"A case?" I said, feeling brighter. "I do hope it's a new case for you," and I squeezed him.

"I can imagine why," said Mycroft, returning the hug. "Unfortunately I have had much to do auditing books at the Foreign Office lately. Come along. Let's see what Watson has to tell us."

I adjusted my necktie, wriggling as a hair disappeared down my collar, then I pulled on my morning coat and accompanied him downstairs.

At the door of the Strangers' Room Mycroft turned to me.

"Not a word about Sherlock. He's obviously keeping himself in the background for some reason of his own. Here we are. Watson! My dear fellow! How do you like those rooms in Kensington? You should really get someone in to hang your pictures, you know."

Watson rose from his seat in the Strangers' Room and shook Mycroft's hand effusively.

"How on earth did you know I'd been hanging pictures, Mycroft?" he asked.

"You have bruised your thumb with what must, from the shape of the bruise, have been a hammer. Why else would a man in lodgings be using a hammer, if not to hang pictures?"

"Good Lord!" laughed Watson. "You're absolutely right, Mycroft."

He then turned to me, and seemed lost for words. He turned bright pink above his moustache, so that I couldn't restrain myself from giggling. I, too, was blushing and could hardly meet his eye.

"Mycroft," I giggled, "we know that Dr Watson is aware of my sex. Pray introduce us properly."

"Very well," said Mycroft. "Dr Watson, Miss Anna Weybridge."

Watson smiled a ready, open smile and made a little bow.

"I'm delighted to meet you again, my dear. It is so much better, isn't it, that we drop all pretence?"

"As long as no-one else knows," I replied, pleased that Watson was so broad-minded.

"Oh, no no!" said Watson in some alarm. "As I said when last we met, your secret is safe with me, Miss Weybridge, whatever you and Mycroft may be doing - er - I mean to say - "

He turned a brighter shade of pink.

"Er - yes, quite - excuse me. Now, the reason for my visit. I have attended a curious case."

"Murder, you think?" asked Mycroft, lowering his bulk into a chair.

"Quite so. Yesterday a young housemaid died in a house in Hanover Square. In a matter of days she had wasted away from a radiant, blooming girl to a listless shadow. I believe her to have been murdered, although in a manner so strange as to have puzzled poor Holmes himself - Sherlock, I mean - had he been alive to see it."

"Go on," said Mycroft impassively.

"Well," continued the Doctor, "this is in strictest confidence, you understand. Medical ethics, you know. The housemaid, Mary Jane Williams, was a remarkably attractive and healthy girl of twenty. She had been in her situation for three years and was reported to be of excellent character.

"Last week her employer, the Duchess of Burntwater, called me in to treat her. I found Mary Jane in what seemed to be the last stages of chronic anaemia, yet her ailment had begun only within the previous few days.

"I prescribed a tonic and arranged to return at the weekend. But before then I was hastily summoned by the Duchess and found the patient dead. A post-mortem showed that the girl had no symptoms whatever of anaemia.

"It was the curious marks on the body that drew my attention. Puncture marks, one in the crook of the elbow, one behind the knee, and one on the neck. I believe that someone injected poison into her, although the post-mortem showed no traces of poison."

"That need mean nothing," said Mycroft.

"Indeed not," replied Watson. "Medical science has not yet learned to detect all forms of poison. The police doctor suspects that something was used that was absorbed rapidly into the bloodstream, possibly a narcotic given in large doses. A friend of yours, Chief Inspector Straightfellow, has been called in. He has questioned the entire household: the Duchess, her daughter Lady Emmeline Tarragon, Lady Emmeline's fiancé the Honourable Stephen Mandeville, Miss Agnes Meriweather - a friend of Lady Emmeline's - and the domestics. As to why it occurred - they know nothing."

Mycroft nodded as Watson finished.

"Interesting, if I had the time to look into it," he said. "Unfortunately, as I was just saying to Miss Weybridge, I have much to do at the Foreign Office at present."

"Ah well," sighed Watson. "Something will come of it, no doubt. It would have intrigued Sherlock."

"I consider the Adair murder more intriguing," said Mycroft.

"Oh, yes, the Adair case!" exclaimed Watson. "In fact, I've been taking an interest in that myself, but then, who has not?"

The Honourable Ronald Adair had been shot the evening of the previous Friday in apparently impossible circumstances after a game of cards. The body had been found in his own sitting room, which was locked from inside, with no sign of the presence of another. He had been shot with a revolver bullet, but the only obvious place from which to fire was a window across the street. I knew that the range was too great, as would anyone who had been trained in shooting by Annie Oakley. 2

"Now that," said Mycroft somewhat mischievously, "would really have been something for Sherlock to get his teeth into, eh, Anna?"

After Watson had gone out into the April sunshine, Mycroft said, "Of course, as you yourself know, Anna, it could not have been done with a revolver. I doubt whether even you could hope to hit a target at such a distance."

"I wouldn't have risked it," I said.

"Therefore the bullet must have been fired from a different type of gun. And one that suggests itself to me is the rifle belonging to our old friend the Colonel."

"Moran? Oh no! Not him! But his pneumatic rifle would have the range."

"He is in London, as we know, and Sherlock is after him, but Moran seems unaware of that. He was playing cards with Adair shortly before the murder. Had he known that Sherlock was on his track, he would have conducted himself more circumspectly."

I shuddered.

"The Adair case has all the hallmarks of Moran," went on Mycroft, "as indeed I shall point out to Sherlock, should he care to consult me."

"Why not tell Watson?"

"He would make all the wrong moves."

"I want to see Moran put out of the way. For one thing, he knows about me, and in any case he's too dangerous to be allowed his liberty."

"Don't worry. Despite Moran's threats to us in the past, he will not want to draw attention to himself now. He will be careful. I fancy, though, from what Sherlock has told me, that he will shortly have the gentleman's head in the noose, if not over the Adair case, then over others. The series of murders that we followed up recently, for instance."

That evening I had no choice but to take a long stroll, for Mycroft decided to put in an hour or so on the tuba. Harris nodded sympathetically as I passed through the lobby.

"Mr Holmes serenading us again, I see, sir."

The mournful rolling bass notes rumbled faintly down the stairs and followed me along the street until I was out of earshot of Mycroft's bedroom window.

Next day, Tuesday 3rd - or the day following, I can't remember - Watson received a visit that drove all thoughts of mysterious deaths from his mind. Mycroft's brother chose to reveal his existence to his faithful friend.

Sherlock was investigating the Adair murder and, in doing so, that very night he brought Colonel Moran to book. I was delighted when I eventually heard of it. Watson planned to lay the details before the public in due course. He seemed to forget about the death of the housemaid, while Mycroft dismissed it from his mind.

"Let Sherlock take up the scent if he wishes, " he said. "I have other fish to fry."

We both had, for during the ensuing weeks the rooms opposite the club were made ready and I moved into them. At the same time my income suddenly increased, and I learned a secret which had perplexed me for years. I learned the name of my father.

I have not yet revealed that my mother was unmarried. I was born at the Vicarage, Twing, Gloucestershire, where my grandfather, the Revd. Poyndexter Weybridge, was Vicar. 3

After mother had refused for the twentieth time to reveal the name of my father, my grandfather, an Old Testament man at heart, put her out of the Vicarage. When I was three he died of an apoplexy while denouncing fornication from his pulpit. He cut off my mother with a shilling, and left everything to her sister Jane.

Aunt Jane married one J. Edgar Rockefeller, who belonged to a minor branch of the moneyed family, and when mother died they were living in Ohio. My mother wrote from her deathbed, beseeching Jane to look after me. Uncle Edgar came over and collected me from the orphanage to which I was sent.

I lived with my uncle and aunt and their two children for some years. As Uncle Edgar began to make money from investing in land and railways, we all ended up in California. They were very fond of me, but when I announced my intention of returning to England and going on stage, the atmosphere at home cooled.

"Anna," said Uncle Edgar, "there's a whole raft of young fellers who'd cut off an arm to marry you. Why don't you settle down here with one of them? The things you do ain't the kind of things a young lady should be doing. Wearing buckskin pants, going off with Indians and shooting buffalo! And skinning 'em too! Where will it end?"

"The London stage will be just as bad," added Aunt Jane. "Still, I know you. You're as strong-willed as your mother, and you'll get your way in the end. But if you find yourself in any trouble, your uncle and I will stand by you. Just wire us and we'll send you your ticket home again."

Aunt Jane was right too. I was headstrong in those days and I looked on the whole business of making my way in the world as a challenge to take up. I came to London with hardly any money - my own choice - and worked hard at making my way in my chosen profession.

After Uncle Edgar made his first million, Aunt Jane realised that she did not need grandfather's money, so she divided it among her two children and me. She sent me some when I was twenty-one. The rest arrived just as I left the Diogenes.

The money included shares in a petroleum company that had grown considerably in value. I sold them and reinvested all the cash to provide a comfortable income.

Although I did not then know it, in her last letter to Aunt Jane mother had revealed the name of my father. My aunt's tearful letter told me that it was grandfather's curate! It was a tearful letter because, when my father begot me, Aunt Jane herself had an understanding with him. He was the Revd. Augustus Dampier, a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. 4

Mycroft let it be known that Dalziel had gone to Canada. I began to revel in being able to wear dresses again and to let my hair grow. To keep up appearances I wrote letters "from Canada" to Mycroft. I missed the club surroundings, but not as much as I had feared. The members of the Diogenes are so unsociable that all the years I lived there I spoke to none.

I missed not being able to climb into Mycroft's bed at times. He was so busy that summer that, even if I had been living at the club, he would not have invited me to sleep with him. He did that only when the excitement of a case roused his animal spirits to uncontrollable levels; otherwise he lived a celibate life. I certainly didn't miss his tuba, except that on summer evenings, with the windows open, I sometimes heard its bellowings and wailings from across the street.

In June, when Mycroft had concluded his task at the Foreign Office, he spent a night with me. How we enjoyed the short summer night in my large and comfortable bed may well be imagined! He had missed me.

"Would you like me back at the club?" I asked in the morning.

"If we could eliminate the risk of Sherlock discovering you, yes. He has already called on me quite unannounced, asking after Mr Dalziel. Apparently Moran carried out his threat to expose Dalziel as a woman. You didn't see The Times on Monday, did you?"

He got out of bed and produced the paper from his coat pocket, unfolding it at a letter. It was from Colonel Sebastian Moran who denounced the hypocrisy of the Diogenes in allowing a member to keep his mistress there disguised as a man. I felt as though I'd swallowed a cucumber whole.

Mycroft then produced Wednesday's paper in which the Secretary of the club had written a stern reply, suggesting that the Colonel was out of his mind.

"Luckily Moran was so angry at being arrested that those who met him thought him insane. Perhaps he is. Lestrade and Straightfellow thought so, and I gather there's some talk that a plea of insanity will be entered to save him from the gallows." 5

"What do people think, Mycroft? Have they asked you anything?"

"No, and I'm pretty certain that no-one has associated W. H. Dalziel with you. Remember, Anna, Moran never knew your real name. However, I think that your move here was justified, because Sherlock was asking me too many questions about Dalziel. The 'letters from Canada' seemed to convince him, but I even had to tell him that I'd thrown the envelopes away. He asked after you as well, as Miss Weybridge, I mean, but I didn't tell him that you were living here. On the whole, I think that Mr Dalziel had best stay in Canada for the time being."

"I can't get into my gentleman's costumes now," I admitted. "I've been trying them on and it's impossible My waist's the same, but my bosom has got bigger since I moved in here, and so has my bottom."

"So I've noticed," said Mycroft, getting back into bed, whereupon we fell once again into the delights of love as the day brightened the room.

Later, over breakfast, he handed me his paper.

"Look at this," he said, pointing out a passage with his knife.

"The passage you've marked with marmalade?" I asked, for Mycroft could never have the paper for more than two minutes without liberally spattering it with butter and jam.

It was a report about two mysterious deaths in Cambridge, where two young maids working at Girton College had been found dead in bed within a week of each other. Each had suffered injury to the neck, but no details were given.

"Similar to Watson's case," said Mycroft. At that moment the doorbell announced a visitor.

Before I moved into the rooms, my good friend Joanna Winstanley had found me a completely reliable, worldly-wise and trustworthy young French maid, a Parisienne who was well acquainted with the fact that a Mr Holmes would occasionally stay the night. With perfect composure, Marie showed Mycroft down the back stairs while I hastened to finish dressing.

I heard his voice in the hallway, accompanied by much laughter and masculine jollity. Boots tramped upstairs, and in a few minutes Marie appeared at the door.

"If you please, mademoiselle, Mr 'Olmes says it is only Dr Watson and will you come through as you are?"

Mycroft and Watson were waiting in the parlour. Watson rose and took my hand.

"My dear Miss Weybridge," he said. "How charming to meet you again!"

He looked me up and down in open admiration. Good heavens! I thought, Mycroft may have a rival here.

"Watson has some news," said Mycroft.

"Yes, I believe my murderer has his eye on another victim!"

Watson's excitement was almost palpable.

"The Girton College deaths?" I asked.

"No. I read about them and I must admit they seem suspiciously like the other deaths I've studied, but this time I think I can anticipate the murderer."

"Watson wants us to involve ourselves, my dear," said Mycroft. "I am presently at a loose end, I know that you always enjoy it when I take up a case" - here I felt myself blushing profusely - "and I agree with him that we should enlist the aid of Sherlock. What do you think?"

"Will you agree, Miss Weybridge?" asked Watson. "I mean that you should not come in the persona of Dalziel, but rather as yourself."

"We have sent Mr Dalziel to Canada," I said, "to save him from Sherlock's gimlet eye. But I shall certainly come."

"The only problem," went on Watson, "is that Sherlock may object to involving a young lady in the case, even though we're constantly told we're living in the era of the New Woman and all that sort of thing."

"Sherlock already believes that I am one of Major Winstanley's agents," I said. I explained about Tubby Winstanley and how Sherlock had mistaken me for a Government agent.

"Oh, in that case," answered Watson, "Sherlock may even welcome your presence. Why undeceive him?"

"He was very much taken with Anna when he first met her," added Mycroft. "Yes, Anna, join us and welcome. Go to Baker Street with Watson while I go to the British Museum Reading Room."

"Whatever for?" asked Watson.

"Researches," answered Mycroft, rising to go.

When Watson and I reached Baker Street, Sherlock was absent. Test tubes and flasks lay in disorder, stained paper discs littered the floor, and a curious odour was noticeable.

"An experiment!" exclaimed Watson. "This means that he too has taken up a case. A new case will absorb all his energies just when we need them. Ah! Haematopluvia - the reagent that precipitates blood."

He held up a test tube containing a clear liquid with a brownish sediment at the bottom.

"He discovered this when I first met him over ten years ago. You see, Miss Weybridge, this liquid reveals bloodstains on cloth, wood, anything, really. Here we have a handkerchief. A lady's by the look of it, stained with that brownish colour. I wonder if he's investigating a murder case." 6

He picked up another small bottle from the mantelpiece, where I noticed a sheaf of bills transfixed by a jack-knife.

"At least he hasn't indulged in this," he said, squinting at the bottle. "The level of liquid seems not to have altered. Cocaine," he added, putting it down again. "He takes it to alleviate boredom. No, I don't think he's available to us for this case."

"We must do our best without him," I said in some relief, for to tell the truth I had not been looking forward to working with Mycroft's brother.

Although Sherlock was, and is, adored by the British public, I had found him overbearingly patronising and pretentious on our first meeting. He was obviously in love with himself and his own abilities and I feared that, in his company, I should be relegated to a merely decorative role. After all, his contempt for my sex is well known from Watson's narratives in the Strand Magazine.

"Dr Watson," I continued, "you, Mycroft and I can surely succeed in this case."

Watson's face flushed and his eyes gleamed.

"Do you really think so, Miss Weybridge?"

"We already have much of the information we need," I continued. "Who is the next prospective victim, in your opinion?"