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thread had been cleared away.
    I was tempted to risk the stairs, to gain a closer look at this so-called guardian of my new—my only—my utterly unanticipated—young apprentice. But that would risk coming face to face with the young woman herself. And that, I feared, might be a form of humiliation she would find impossible to forgive.
    I paused in the sitting room to study the framed photographs, then left the house for good.
    The rest of the night I spent before the fire with a pipe and a tin of shag tobacco.

9
    It was raining the next morning when the London train left Eastbourne.
    I arrived at the station early, not having dared enquire which train Russell intended to take—clients unaware they were clients always made for a tricky investigation, but with one as clever as Miss Mary Russell, the situation promised to be truly challenging. Her spectacles might be cracked, and their frames bent, but her vision remained startlingly acute.
    Fortunately, I have friends in many odd corners of the world, including Eastbourne. I had been in place a little over three hours when a motor pulled up and out she climbed. She gave a small wave to the man at the wheel—her farm manager, Patrick—and went straight inside, carrying a small valise. I peeled myself off the wall of the tiny storage closet of the office across the street and hobbled on half-asleep feet down the stairs and onto the street.
    With her tight budget, and this trip being a mere two and a half hours (assuming the schedule was not interrupted by troop movement), I did not think she would indulge in a seventeen shilling First Class return. Nine shillings and fourpence would be quite enough of a drain on her purse.
    Thus, I bought a ticket for First. I had taken care with my disguise that morning, and my last act before stepping onto the street had been the insertion of the scleral lenses over my eyes, to change their colour from clear grey to muddy brown. The lenses had the unfortunate side-effect of making one’s tear ducts water ferociously, and would have me in agony by the time we reached Victoria. Still, as a finishing touch, they were far more effective than spectacles. And since our lessons had yet to cover surveillance techniques, chances were good that Russell had never heard of such things.
    I pulled the raccoon-skin collar of the alpaca overcoat around my chin, settled my fedora at a rakish angle, and swanned my way towards First Class. Even if Russell had been looking directly out her window at me, I did not believe she had the experience to see through that particular costume and the way I moved inside of it.
    It was actually rather amusing: Sherlock Holmes forced to muster all his skills to outwit a child of fifteen years.
    The train left on time, then alternated its normal speed with odd pauses in empty countryside, coming to London less than an hour late. I took care to lose a glove amongst my draperies, allowing the other passengers to leave the carriage. Once Russell’s head had gone past the windows, I put on the glove, tugged up the wretched collar, and stepped down to the platform.
    She did not look back once.
    Nor, in this city of soldiers, did she take any note of the young man in uniform who leant against the outer wall. He had one arm in a sling; the other held a cigarette.
    I stopped beside him, watching intently as my apprentice crossed the busy forecourt towards the street. By now my eyes were burning like fury, but I could see well enough to be certain that no one dropped in behind her, no one broke into a trot to join her omnibus queue.
    She should be safe until the afternoon.
    “Billy wrote me that you’d been wounded,” I said to the young man. “Do you require that sling?”
    “Er, Mr Holmes?” The young soldier took his eyes off her figure, just for a moment, not at all certain of this person who addressed him.
    “Must you wear that sling?” I asked again, more urgently. Injured soldiers might be commonplace in London,