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Dr. Watson's Wanton Wimbleton
by David Shaw (david@f-e-mail.com)

***

England's greatest detective is in the Balkans and 
sexual blackmail is afoot in centre court. Can the good 
Doctor save Miss Maude Oakes from a fate worse than 
being beaten by an American challenger or will it be a 
love all? (MMF, reluc)

***

It's often said that doctors make the worst patients 
and I was feeling fretful enough to prove the point. 
Still, it was a day that would cause any Londoner to 
chafe at having to remain indoors: high summer and a 
cloudless sky outside as the sun warmed the 
cobblestones of Baker Street and smiled through the 
opened windows of number 221B. The chemical retorts 
stacked on the acid stained workbench glistened, dust 
motes danced over the piles of books lying in untidy 
heaps and only the unused fireplace seemed mournful.

Candidly though, the fireplace was not the only thing 
in the room which seemed to be of no present utility to 
anyone. That description might well have been applied 
to me, John H. Watson, MD, late of the Medical 
Department of the Indian Army. For I was temporarily 
crippled by a sharp attack of gout in the toes of my 
left foot, an attack of such severity that I was 
compelled to spend most of my time sitting in my 
armchair by the empty fireplace with the afflicted foot 
resting on a footstool. Not only were my toes paining 
me, but the affected nerves also extended to my old 
Afghan bullet wound, summoning up frequent sharp 
twinges as unwelcome reminders of past service on the 
North West Frontier.

It ill becomes an old campaigner to complain about 
minor afflictions but such was my mood that I would 
have gladly welcomed the chance of a few minutes 
conversation with that brash young author, Mr Kipling, 
so that I might have told him what I thought of all the 
tosh he writes about the Great Game. In my humble 
opinion, if the Russians or anybody else want to rule 
Afghanistan, we Britons should offer them every 
encouragement to try to do so. That blighted territory 
has caused nothing but trouble for anybody foolish 
enough to meddle in its barbaric affairs and always 
will do.

But since there was neither Mr Kipling nor anybody else 
present to talk to, I perforce attempted once again to 
find something interesting to read in the books Mrs 
Hudson had placed by my side. It was not an occupation 
which could divert my restlessness for long. Unusually 
for one of my normally placid temperament I now had 
some inkling of the oppressive boredom which settled on 
Holmes when there was no case of interest to apply his 
mind to. For me, a brisk walk in the fresh air and a 
half pint of best bitter afterwards in "The Cask and 
Greyhound" would have settled my nerves admirably. Yet 
even those small pleasures were presently denied me.

Perhaps, though, the matter of most concern was the 
absence of the world's greatest detective. For Sherlock 
Holmes was carrying out one of the most important 
investigations of his career, and doing so far away 
from his usual haunts. He had been gone from London for 
over five days and I believed him by now to be 
somewhere in Transylvania.

"I have no wish at all to be dispatched on this 
mission, Watson," he had told me from amidst a cloud of 
his favorite shag tobacco on the eve of his departure 
to Dover. "But the request came not only from the Prime 
Minister and the Foreign Secretary: there was also an 
appeal from an even more majestic level, one which no 
loyal Englishman could deny. Indeed, never before can I 
remember such concern in the highest of circles, not 
even when the plans for the Bruce-Partington 
submersible vessel went astray. So I'm bound for the 
Balkans, and no discussion is to be entered into."

"But, Holmes, what could happen in those primitive 
areas to affect British interests?" I'd asked of him in 
surprise.

"Why, Watson, anyone who takes the trouble to read the 
daily newsprints knows that the Austro-Hungarian Empire 
is a ship of state with many in its crew ripe for 
mutiny. Now we have certain word that the Black Hand 
Gang of Serbia is planning to strike a blow which will 
be deemed a casus beli for a general uprising against 
the Imperial authorities. I agree that in times past 
that would have been a matter of little interest to 
London, but we live in a changing world. One of the 
most important capitals in Europe has passed into the 
control of a vainglorious peacock with a thirst for 
military adventures. Let a spark strike in the Balkans 
today and it might set off the whole of Europe like a 
gigantic powder magazine. That is a tragedy that any 
man must do whatever is in his power to prevent. So now 
I fear I must make my departure for the boat train."

I'd struggled to my feet to shake his hand and bid him 
God speed. "I only wish that I might come with you, 
Holmes, but with this accursed foot I would be more 
hindrance than help."

"Come, Watson, cheer up. Even if you were able to 
chronicle this case it's an absolute surety it could 
never be published, not for as long as the Austro-
Hungarian and British Empires endure. And I fear you 
would find the foothills of the Carpathanian Mountains 
but a poor substitute for our usual lush hunting 
grounds in the home counties. No, it's best you stay 
and hold the fort against my return, stout fellow that 
you are. Farewell."

Well, if I was still holding the fort, it was as a 
forlorn and crippled garrison. As Holmes had done so 
many times before me, I wished that something would 
happen which would occupy my mind. And how soon and how 
fully was that idle wish to be granted!

"Doctor, excuse me, but there's a young lady on the 
doorstep who wishes to speak to Mr Holmes."

I looked up to see Mrs Hudson's honest face at the 
doorway. It seemed odd that she should have troubled to 
ascend the staircase for such a pointless announcement.

"Then she is unfortunate in her timing, as well you 
know, Mrs Hudson. Mr Holmes is abroad and not expected 
back for some time. Whatever the lady's difficulties, 
she must seek her help for them in some other quarter."

Mrs Hudson was as little affected by my blast of 
irritation as an oak tree by a gentle breeze: "Yes, 
Doctor, but this is not quite an ordinary young lady. 
Her name is Miss Oakes."

I felt my brows crease in puzzlement at her words. Was 
I supposed to be acquainted with this female?

"Miss Maude Oakes," Mrs Hudson repeated with a touch of 
asperity and suddenly I realized whom she was referring 
to.

"You mean the tennis player? The All England champion?"

"Yes sir, that Miss Oakes. The girl who won at 
Wimbledon last year and will again tomorrow, when she 
beats that American upstart, Daisy Cavanah."

Mrs Hudson's already sharp voice became even sharper 
with disapproval.

"Can you imagine that, Doctor, some Yankee coming over 
here and thinking they can beat the English at their 
own game? And yet that may well happen if Miss Maude 
has to go out onto the court in the same condition 
she's in now. In no fit state to represent her country, 
poor dear, I can see that much for myself."

I had no idea that Mrs Hudson had such an interest in 
any sport, but it was indeed possible that she might 
approve very strongly of Miss Oakes. Certainly 
everybody in the country knew about the young female 
champion, even those not normally interested in tennis. 
For Maude Oakes was in the way of being England's 
sweetheart and I was astonished at my own slowness in 
not noting her name as soon as I heard it. I well 
remembered once seeing her play and it was a treasured 
memory. A tall strapping Amazon of a girl with a figure 
which made men catch their breath as she ran across a 
court, the hem of her skirt brushing against the grass 
so swiftly it sometimes seemed more like flying than 
fleetness of foot.

Yet it was not only her athletic and sporting prowess 
had made her a favorite of the press, but also her 
beauty, and it seemed there was always some excuse for 
her photograph to be published in the papers once more, 
almost always with her tennis cap perched jauntily on 
top of her tresses of blonde hair.

Again, I reflected that Maude Oakes seemed the most 
unlikely of visitors to be expected at Sherlock Holmes' 
lodgings. Whatever had brought her here there was 
probably little enough that I could do to help her. 
Still, she was more than welcome to enter, for the 
sight of her would light up my morning as surely as the 
sun was brightening up everybody else's day. And 
presumably a few minutes conversation could be of no 
great matter to Miss Oakes, whatever the urgency of her 
business.

With the aid of my stick I had managed to struggle to 
my feet when Mrs Hudson showed the young lady in. There 
are some people who can dominate their setting just by 
being there, like a diamond in a piece of jewellery. 
They have a physical presence and a personality which 
seems to be cut from a more glittering cloth than the 
more prosaic material the rest of us have to wear 
during our earthly existence. Miss Oakes was one such: 
she was taller than me, broad shouldered, deep bosomed, 
yet with a waistline which would have done credit to a 
danseuse; her blonde hair and vivid blue eyes were made 
for a Viking's delight and her complexion had the 
freshness of newly dewed rose petals. Above all else 
though, my first impression of her was of a radiant 
energy and a grace of movement worthy of display on the 
stage of Covent Garden.

Quite frankly, once she was touching my hand in 
greeting, I was regretting my decision to admit her. 
For I suddenly realized how old and infirm I must seem 
when compared to this young and golden embodiment of 
youthful Britannia.

"Doctor Watson, it is good of you to see me. I'm in 
desperate need of sound advice. In fact it was an 
assistant manager of the Savoy Hotel whom suggested 
that I come here, though he himself knows not the half 
of my troubles."

Indeed, she looked to be near despair, and my heart 
beat in sympathy, as it must in the breast of any 
decent man when appealed to by a person of the feminine 
persuasion.

"Miss Oakes, we could hardly turn away a young lady of 
your accomplishments away from our doorstep. But it is 
my sad duty to tell you that Mr Holmes is abroad and 
unable to help you for the present."

She nodded: "So I was informed when I arrived. But 
perhaps my journey has not been wasted. Frankly, the 
matter which brings me here is so delicate that I would 
actually prefer to reveal it to a medical man in the 
first instance. Please, may I talk freely to you?"

"Of course, Miss Oakes, of course."

The lady politely refused Mrs Hudson's offer of a dish 
of tea. Once we were alone and seated she produced a 
letter from her reticule.

"Before I show this to you, Doctor, I must first 
explain that during the All England Tennis 
Championships I have been staying at the Savoy Hotel. 
As you know I have been fortunate enough to win my way 
through to the finals, which will be played tomorrow 
morning at eleven thirty. Yesterday I returned to the 
Savoy from Wimbledon with all my playing gear in the 
cab with me. Somehow, between the time my cases were 
unloaded, and the porter bringing them to my room, my 
racket was stolen."

"Stolen? At the Savoy!"

"Yes, it seems quite incredible and at first the 
management believed some dreadful mistake had been made 
as they made the most desperate efforts to find out 
where the racket could have gone to.

"You must understand, Doctor, how much that racket 
means to me. It was made for me when I first began 
playing tennis by Mr Owen Mullard, at that time the 
senior proprietor of Mullard and Sons of Restoration 
Row, the greatest racketer there ever was and now, 
regrettably, deceased. Every game since then I have 
played with my  Millard in my hand, and I know it as 
well as a violinist would know his Stradivarius. I also 
know that I can never hope to play at my top form 
without my own racket. Which means I shall probably 
lose against Daisy Cavanah."

I was aghast at the very mention of such a possibility.

"A Yankee winning at Wimbledon! Come, come, Miss Oakes, 
surely the loss of even the most treasured of rackets 
cannot undermine your morale to the extent that you 
could believe such a thing possible. Why, her Majesty 
herself is believed to be taking an interest in the 
outcome of the Championships."

Miss Oakes shook her head sadly: "I fear that I shall 
indeed be defeated. All conflicts on the center court 
are eventually decided as much upon spirit as on skill, 
and everybody involved in the game knows how much value 
I place on my Mullard. When she hears that it has been 
taken from me Daisy Cavanah's spirits must be elevated 
in the same degree that mine have been lowered."

So obvious was her distress that I almost reached out 
to squeeze her hand in compassion. Fortunately I was 
able to stop myself from committing such a terrible 
faux pas with an unmarried lady.

"You say your racket has been stolen from you, Miss 
Oakes. Are you absolutely sure that this is so? Might 
it not have been misplaced or taken away in error?"

"No, Doctor. For a letter addressed to me was delivered 
to the Savoy desk this morning by a pageboy who handed 
in over with my empty racket case and immediately left. 
Before I show it to you, I beg your assurance that you 
will keep its contents completely confidential. Even 
the mere fact of my having received it would cause a 
terrible scandal."

"How could that possibly be?" I asked.

"Read it and you will find out for yourself, for surely 
you will never have seen a more infamous document, not 
in any of the nefarious criminal cases you have 
chronicled as Mr Sherlock Holmes’ companion!"

Surprised by the openly displayed intensity of her 
emotions, I picked up the letter. I was written on a 
single sheet of fine quality but unheaded writing paper 
with a well shaped nib and neatly blotted:

'My Dear Miss Oakes,

Or may I take the liberty of calling you Maude? For I 
hope we shall be much better acquainted by and by. I 
would indeed wish us to be friends, and as a friend it 
is my pleasure to return to you your racket case, 
proving that I have possession of your Mullard, which, 
I am happy to assure you, is unharmed.

Naturally, as a patriotic Englishman, it is my dearest 
wish that your racket should also be returned to you 
forthwith so you may win the All England Championship. 
However, being also a man, and perhaps your greatest 
admirer, I claim the privilege of returning your 
property to you personally. Be on platform number six 
at Euston station at three o'clock this afternoon. You 
will be approached and show a playing card, the Ace of 
Hearts. Without any hesitation you will follow the 
person who shows you the card and obey any instructions 
he or she gives you. By a roundabout route you will be 
brought to me and your racket handed back to you.

However, before the transaction is complete, I shall 
claim my reward. As a keen photographer I have long 
desired to capture your image, preferably holding your 
racket aloft. But what would make the photograph 
perfect would be for you to pose for me wearing nothing 
but you're playing boots and your tennis cap. That 
would indeed be a picture worth the taking.

If you genuinely desire to have your racket returned, 
and if you are willing to grant me the favor I have 
asked for, be at Euston station at three o'clock. 
Should you be unwise enough to involve the police in 
this matter, be aware that the agent who meets you at 
the station will be completely unable to help the force 
to identify or locate me. Furthermore, any such action 
will result in the immediate destruction of your 
precious racket,

Your most obedient servant,

An Ardent Admirer'

My hand shook with outrage as I read this madman's 
letter. Indeed, I was so angry that I could find no 
words at first to express my feelings, but could only 
express them in lashing at the footstool with my stick, 
nearly hitting my own foot as I did so. I suppose it 
was something of a comical performance, but rarely in 
my life had I felt so angry as I spluttered and struck 
out in ineffectual rage at the furniture.

"Blaggardly, Caddish! An affront to civilized society! 
Despicable!"

As I sank back into my chair there came an urgent 
knocking on the door: "Doctor! Doctor! Are you 
alright?" Mrs Hudson was clearly worried that I might 
have suffered from some kind of seizure.

With considerable effort I managed to calm my outraged 
sensibilities to some degree.

"I'm well enough, thank you." I called out to reassure 
my anxious landlady. "Nothing for you to worry about, 
Mrs Hudson."

I waited until I had heard the worthy landlady's 
footsteps go back down the staircase before I could 
trust myself to speak.

"You are quite right, Miss Oakes. I have never, never, 
in all my years of dealing with the criminal classes, 
come across anything so flagrantly in denial of all 
standards of human decency. Equally certainly, your 
name must never be linked with this madman's ravings. I 
suggest you burn this letter immediately."

Miss Oakes pursed her lips, as if in doubt about my 
advice.

"Might it not be better to keep it in case it contains 
some clue as to the origin? You see, Doctor, I have had 
time to think on my journey here and I wonder if this 
is perhaps some kind of a trick designed to unsettle me 
even more than the loss of my racket. It may be that 
whoever penned this . . . communication is not in fact 
a madman but a student of psychology intent on 
completely destroying the last shreds of my 
concentration before tomorrow's match."

"By Jove, you could be right," I admitted. "But it 
would take a mind of complete depravity to conceive 
such a plan. Were you committed to playing a French 
opponent the situation might possibly be as you 
postulate."

"But surely no American would ever stoop so low?"

"Hmmm... No, I doubt it, Miss Oakes. Certainly they 
have their baser moments, but with the Americans it's 
almost always money which brings out the worst in them, 
and that can hardly apply here. Not even the most 
avaricious Yankee sharp can ever hope to make any money 
out of respectable sporting activities, least of all in 
such a genteel pursuit as female tennis. No, I believe 
this letter to come from the source it indicates, some 
foul creature so utterly besotted by his bestial 
desires that he imagines you might possibly consent to 
do as he bids you to."

Miss Oakes stared at me with a directness and a force 
in those vivid blue eyes which quite disconcerted me: 
"And yet I must consider the alternatives. Imagine the 
prospect of a Wimbledon Trophy being taken ashore at 
New York and borne in triumph through the streets. It 
would be like a Roman Triumph! Why, I might as well be 
dragged along Broadway in a cage as if I were a 
captured barbarian princess being taken as a prize to 
Caesar."

"Come, come, Miss Oakes, you exaggerate, surely? After 
all, you would not be there but here, in your own 
country."

"Yes, here in a country in which all my previous 
successes would have been turned to ashes in my mouth. 
A country in which I would hereafter be pitied at best 
and regarded as almost a traitoress by others. No, I 
will not submit to that fate without a desperate 
struggle, no matter what sacrifices I may be called 
upon to make."

I tried to lead her back to the path of sanity.

"Miss Oakes, a moment's quiet thought must indicate to 
you that any idea of actually following the 
instructions in this foul letter would lead you to a 
position in which you could be totally compromised. 
Such a rash course of action might mean being forcibly 
deprived of a treasure worth far more to a decent girl 
than any sporting trophy."

Those curiously bright eyes seemed even bluer than the 
summer sky outside as they continued to gaze upon me: 
"You are referring to my virginity, Doctor Watson?"

Never in all my years of medical practice had any young 
gal spoken to me with such directness. Certainly, never 
before had I found myself discussing such delicate 
matters with a blush on my own cheek and none on my 
patient's fair features. Yet Miss Oakes seemed quite 
unperturbed as she laid out the position with a 
directness which would have taken a female bargee 
aback.

"Do not regard me as a wanton, Doctor, I beg you. For I 
have no intention of tamely submitting to this devil's 
bargain. Nor will I involve the official police in such 
a delicate matter. I am resolved to deal with it 
myself. I am as strong as many a man and can move 
faster than most. And in this matter I have every right 
and justification to do whatever I must to achieve the 
return of my property. I intend to go to Euston station 
and go wherever I am directed to. But I shall carry a 
concealed weapon upon my person and I hope to be able 
to use it to force this reprobate into handing back my 
Mullard and then allowing me to depart without let or 
hindrance."

"My dear Miss Oakes! This is the spirit that won the 
Empire!"

Even my old heart beat faster with uncontrollable 
admiration as I gazed at this perfect example of 
English womanhood, this divine mixture of physical 
perfection and ardent spirit. No wonder we bred the 
finest stock in the world with such dams.

Indeed, dear reader, could anybody blame me if for once 
I regretted my everyday humdrum existence and wished 
for some magical spirit to appear bringing me gifts of 
grand titles and a great estate. For, in a moment of 
madness, I could not help but think of Adeline Horsey 
de Horsey, one of the most beautiful women of her 
generation, a girl who could speak fluently in five 
languages and had written an operatic score at the age 
of fifteen. How impossible it had seemed to all of 
society that, in the prime of her life, Adeline should 
have chosen to marry that brainless, womanizing buffoon 
the Earl of Cardigan.

Yet it had happened. Somehow a girl of her shining 
talents had managed to fall in love with an old dog 
over sixty years old, a rancid ancient libertine 
carrying the sacrificed souls of the Light Brigade 
forever on his conscience, not to mention the miseries 
of many seduced and abandoned young girls. If such a 
thoroughly undeserving man of mature years had 
succeeded in wooing a younger girl of great abilities, 
might not another older gentleman of greater moral 
worth also dare to dream?

Well, of course he couldn't. Even as a peer of the 
realm Cardigan had had to wait until his first wife had 
died before he could propose marriage to Adeline. And 
in his seventies the Earl had still been one of the 
finest riders to hounds in England, retaining the 
figure and bearing of a Light Dragoon into old age, 
whereas I could hardly drag my overweight and gout 
ridden frame out of my chair. 'Doctor, cure thyself' I 
thought in a spat of bitter regret for time past. The 
game was no longer afoot for James Watson.

It was the voice of Miss Oakes which brought me back to 
my senses.

"So, you see, Doctor, perhaps you can assist me even 
without Mr Holmes’ presence. Surely you must retain 
some trophies from the many cases you have been 
involved in together? Is there in your possession such 
a thing as a small pistol which I might be able to 
conceal upon me?"

Sadly, I had to shake my head. I knew of no such item 
being on the premises. It was true that there were many 
remarkable souvenirs stowed away in various nooks and 
crannies of 221B Baker Street but none of them of the 
kind that Miss Oakes was seeking. For one fleeting 
second I considered giving her a vial of vitriol to use 
if necessary, but it was a thought which passed away in 
a shudder of horror as I recalled the dissolved remains 
of Baron Gruner's face after that hellcat Kitty Winter 
had taken her revenge upon him with a glassful of acid. 
No, no human being with any hope of salvation could 
suggest or encourage the use of vitriol on any living 
creature, no matter what the circumstances.

Then, when I was on the very point of confessing my 
inability to help my fair guest in any way, inspiration 
not only tapped me on the shoulder but fairly shouted 
in my ear that I was a confounded fool not to have 
realized before what I must do. I hammered on the floor 
with my stick and called out in such force as to bring 
Mrs Hudson up the stairs in a flash and to cause  to 
stare in astonishment at me.

"Mrs Hudson! Mrs Hudson! I want you to send for Wiggins 
immediately. You know where he is to be found 
nowadays?"

"Wiggins, Doctor? Of course I do, at his place of 
business in Coneysale Road, not five minutes away by 
cab."

"Then I desire you to go into the street, hail the 
first hansom you can find and go to Coneysale Road 
immediately. My compliments to Wiggins and I have the 
most urgent need of his immediate attendance here. No 
matter what else he may be doing, this matter if of 
more importance. You understand, Mrs Hudson, of prior 
importance."

She curtsied to show her understanding and eagerness to 
act as my Mercury: "I'll get my bonnet and be on my way 
in two shakes of a lamb's tail, Doctor."

Miss Oakes's brows were still furrowed with curiosity 
as Mrs Hudson retreated down the staircase again.

"Doctor, pray tell me, who is this Wiggins?"

"Why, Miss Oakes, when I first met him he was nothing 
more than a dirty little Street Arab. That was long 
ago, when I first came here to share these lodgings 
with Holmes.  But even then my friend had already 
organized the gang of urchins he called the Baker 
Street Irregulars. Wiggins was their leader and I first 
met him and the other Irregulars when Holmes called 
them in to help him search the Thames for Mordecai 
Smith's steam yacht, the Aurora."

My memories vaulted back to that dark night, the swirl 
of foam under the Aurora's stern, the pounding of the 
engine of the police launch as Holmes raged at the 
vessel's delay in overtaking our prey, the swirling 
sparks dancing away in the wind betwixt the white 
funnel smoke and the river's black water. In the end 
we'd driven the Aurora ashore on Plumstead Marshes with 
a murderous native dwarf lying dead upon the deck and a 
one legged madman making a futile effort to escape by 
leaping overboard, only to get his wooden leg 
hopelessly stuck in the deep mud. But what we didn't 
know then was that Jonathan Small had already had the 
last laugh in the affair, nor that we'd left a trail of 
Indian gems worth half a million pounds behind us on 
the bottom of the Thames to mark the course of the five 
mile chase.

"Wiggins, Doctor. You were telling me about this 
Wiggins," Miss Oakes reminded me.

"Oh, I'm sorry... an old man's dreams, I'm afraid. Yes, 
Wiggins was the leader of the Irregulars then, by 
virtue of his energy and cleverness and has since gone 
on to lift himself up in the world by his bootstraps, 
as the saying is. Which is very good work indeed for a 
boy who owned no boots or shoes to begin with. Holmes 
provided money for him to learn to read and write and 
then to set himself up in his own business, at which he 
has proved remarkably successful. Indeed, he is still 
only eighteen or nineteen, I believe, and yet his 
agency employs some dozen people now."

"Really, that does sound remarkable, Doctor," Miss 
Oakes agreed. "But what is his business and why do you 
wish to summon him here so urgently?"

I smiled at my own stupidity: "Of course, I should have 
said. As it happens, Wiggins has traded very 
successfully on the public attention he has received 
from my accounts of Holmes’ cases. He announced to the 
world that anyone clever enough to help the great 
Sherlock Holmes must be worthy of hire as a private 
investigator in his own right, and a very plausible 
argument it has proven. The Wiggins Investigation 
Agency has gone from strength to strength since its 
founding."

"Indeed. But surely it could not have continued to be a 
success if this Mr Wiggins had not been good at his 
work?" Miss Oakes asked shrewdly.

"That is so. Even as a child Wiggins had great 
abilities and he certainly did learn much in assisting 
Holmes in many cases. Indeed, one of the first thing he 
did on his own account was to form another band of 
irregulars to work for him as he himself had led 
Holmes' own band of urchins. With the great man out of 
the country, I can think of no better course of action 
than to seek Wiggins' advice as the most immediate and 
satisfactory substitute."

I paused and then realized how difficult a position I 
had placed my guest in.

"Of course, Miss Oakes, no doubt you would wish to 
leave now. It would be intensely embarrassing for you 
to be present whilst another male reads the contents of 
this evil letter."

Again those eyes, aimed at me as unwaveringly as Afghan 
musket barrels: "No, Doctor, with your permission I 
will stay. This matter is too important for me to worry 
overmuch about such niceties."

"Very well, Miss Oakes."

Over the years I have chronicled Holmes' cases some 
remarkable examples of untypical female behavior had 
come my way. Mrs Maria Gibson, for example, who had 
blown out her own brains after using them to arrange a 
suicide which would see her rival in love hung for 
murdering Mrs Maria Gibson: Mrs Burnett, who had been 
prepared to live for years in the dreadful household of 
the Tiger of San Pedro in order to have her widow's 
revenge, and, on a lighter note, perhaps, the 
unforgettable Hatty Doran, who had run away from her 
own wedding reception as Lady St. Simon and had turned 
up again the following day, bright and cheerful, as the 
lawfully married Mrs Hay Moulton.

It would hardly be fair to classify Miss Oakes as 
belonging in such wayward company and yet, with every 
gram of scrupulous fairness towards her, I could not 
help but feel that she seemed oddly complacent over the 
prospect of Wiggins reading this obscene proposal in 
her presence. It even seemed as if she might be finding 
some hint of perverse pleasure at the thought.

I struggled to free myself of such unworthy suspicions, 
and glad I was to hear the crack of a cab driver's whip 
and the clatter of hooves through the opened window. 
Miss Oakes glanced in that direction, half rising from 
the sofa: "May I..."

"Of course."

She rose, walked to the window and looked down into 
Baker Street. "Why, is that Mr Wiggins, Doctor? The 
handsome well set up young man with a fair moustache? 
It must be he because Mrs Hudson is also getting out of 
the cab. She must indeed have hurried to Coneysale road 
because her complexion still seems most flushed and 
agitated."

"That sounds like Wiggins," I agreed, and was proved 
correct in scarcely a moment as somebody moved quickly 
up the staircase and knocked sharply on the door. At my 
invitation the door opened and Wiggins strode in.

It had been some time since our last meeting and once 
again I was astonished at his capacity for continuing 
self improvement. Wiggins' style of dress had matured 
from an everyday shop clerk grey to a fawn suit with 
matching waistcoat and a ruffled choker set off with a 
diamond headed tie pin, every inch and every seam of 
his attire perfectly cut and suitable for display at 
the most fashionable addresses in London. As for the 
wearer of this excellently tailored apparel, he seemed 
to have grown taller and developed an even more 
powerful physique in the arms and chest, presumably 
through much exercise with Indian clubs or similar 
bodily strengthening exercises.

It was hard to believe that this swaggering man of 
style had once been the same little boy who had trailed 
mud from the gutter across Mrs Hudson's carpets with 
his bare feet. It was even harder to believe that the 
same woman was now holding the door open for him and 
quite unnecessarily laying a hand on his arm to 
encourage him to enter.

That seemed like rather strange behavior on the part of 
our normally very formally behaved landlady, especially 
as she was still red faced and apparently short of 
breath. It seemed odd that she had not been able to 
regain her composure whilst riding in the cab, and even 
odder was the look on her face as she gazed up at 
Wiggins' features, apparently enthralled by them for 
some reason. This seemed strange, as was the obvious 
reluctance with which she finally released our 
visitor's sleeve.

"Thank you, Mrs Hudson."

It was like ordering a water spaniel to let go of a 
shot duck. For a few moments I thought Mrs Hudson would 
never take her leave. Using the keen deductive 
capabilities I had learned from Holmes I concluded that 
the good lady was suffering from an attack of acute 
embarrassment, for one button on the front of her shirt 
had somehow fallen off and another had been put back 
through the wrong button hole, causing a great crease 
in the white material already stretched so tightly 
across her matronly shape. Perhaps Wiggins had drawn 
her attention to this matter in the privacy of the cab 
on their way over. That might well explain her flushed 
cheeks and deep breathing.

"Don't worry, Mrs Hudson," Wiggins said. "I'll be down 
by and by to see to your parrot."

"Her parrot?" I asked, in surprise.

"Why yes, Mrs Hudson's parrot seems down in the beak, 
or so I've heard," he answered in jest. "But I've told 
Mrs Hudson that I'll stop by later and show her where 
it needs some deep scratching. That'll soon get it 
squawking loud enough for all the house to hear."

He winked at Mrs Hudson, her face darkened into a 
beetroot red in color and she scuttled back down the 
staircase with one hand clamped around her mouth. If 
not for the other matters pressing on me I would have 
followed our worthy landlady and inquired if something 
was unduly exciting her constitution. As it was I 
turned back into the room and found Wiggins bending low 
over Miss Oakes's hand as he raised it to his lips.

A damned foreigner's trick I thought, and one that no 
decent Englishman should be employing, even one who had 
so many deficiencies in his upbringing to make good. 
Though it seemed that Maude had no objection to 
Wiggins' cavalier style of introducing himself. Her 
head was half lowered but her look was as sharp and 
direct upon him as it had been upon me -- though then 
her eyelids had not fluttered as they were now doing. 
Indeed, I might even have thought that Miss Oakes was 
flirting with the young man, though that was impossible 
of course, as she was of a far superior social class. 
Even so, I was surprised how little Cockney accent 
remained in Wiggins' speech.

"This is indeed an honor, Miss Oakes, to make your 
acquaintance. When Mrs Hudson said that Miss Maude 
Oakes was here and in need of help I came as quickly as 
I could."

Maude's lips seemed to be drawing into a smile she 
couldn't suppress: "But you had enough time to discuss 
Mrs Hudson's parrot with her on the way back?"

"Oh, yes, I sometimes stop by of an evening at Mrs 
Hudson's and ask her if she wants a helping hand with 
her bird of paradise."

Maude flushed and clapped her hand to her mouth in 
exactly the same way as Mrs Hudson had done. Wiggins 
seemed to have this strange effect on both women of 
inducing near fits with a few commonplace words. Why 
this should be I couldn't fathom. But he continued 
speaking as if he'd noticed nothing unusual.

"Of course it's something of a trade secret, what I do, 
Miss Oakes. But if you was to be standing outside her 
door and listening when I'm rustling the feathers 
inside, well, you'd be amazed at some of the noises 
that parrot makes. You might think it was almost 
human."

Maude now appeared to be having great difficulty in 
repressing a gust of laughter, even though Wiggins' 
words seemed a poor jest to me and a waste of time in 
pointless conversation. Sometimes I can't understand 
the younger generation at all.

"Never mind about parrots, Wiggins," I said sharply. 
"Let me explain why I've sent for you."

In a few brisk words I gave Wiggins the same details 
that Miss Oakes had given me about the loss of her 
racket and the absolute necessity of recovering it 
before the Wimbledon Finals match. Then, reluctantly, 
but at Miss Oakes's nod of approval, I gave him the 
letter to read.

I would have expected the lady to have averted her 
attention from Wiggins as he perused the foul warrant 
for her humiliation, but no. Although she kept her head 
lowered she continued to glance up at him in a 
coquettish style, as though to judge his reaction to 
the suggestion that she be forced to pose au naturel in 
front of a photographic apparatus. For a moment of time 
his eyes did lift to hers. But then Wiggins was nodding 
his head in understanding and talking in a brisk and 
business like way.

"Well, Doctor, if what it says here is true, then 
there's no use in nabbing this go-between at Euston, 
for he or she will not be able to tell us where to find 
the miscreant who wrote this letter. Which means that 
the only alternative is to follow Miss Oakes to 
wherever she's taken and then to rescue her and her 
racket."

"Yes," I agreed. "That's the matter, in a nutshell. Can 
it be done?"

"Hmmm, perhaps." Wiggins paced up and down, 
occasionally glancing at Maude as he did so. "I've a 
good team, upwards of twenty if I turn them all out. 
The deuce of it is that Euston has so many ways in and 
out, especially for the knowing, and there's always 
such a press of people around. So maybe we should try 
something else as well, for I've had this problem 
before, and solved it pretty neatly."

"In what way?" I asked.

"Why it was a case of a young lady who feared she was 
going to abducted and forced into a violation of her 
honor by an older man who'd become besotted with her. I 
put two of my girls with her twenty four hours a day, 
as bodyguards you might say, but things went beyond 
anything they were expecting when they were surrounded 
by a gang of thugs with drawn pistols. Into a covered 
wagon they were bundled, still at pistol point and 
taken to a house in Brixham. They locked my girls up in 
separate rooms, no windows, bars on the doors, and 
thought no more about them while the girl they were 
supposed to be guarding was plied with champagne and 
lying promises by the lecherous old devil who'd 
arranged the kidnapping."

"My goodness, can such things really happen?" Maude 
asked him.

"Oh, certainly, Miss Oakes," Wiggins confirmed. "Why, I 
could tell you stories... but never mind. So, as I was 
saying, my two girls, Angel and Christina, there they 
were, in different rooms, each with a pistol tucked in 
her garter and nothing to be done with them. But I 
hadn't spent so much time with Mr Holmes without 
learning something and my gals had another trick up 
their skirts, so to speak."

Wiggins saw the disapproving look on my face and seemed 
suitably embarrassed: "Sorry, Doctor, just my little 
joke, you understand. But, Doctor, you'll remember the 
time that Mr Holmes needed to find out where that 
cunning vixen Irene Adler had hidden something he badly 
wanted to find? You remember how he got himself 
smuggled into her house and what you were asked to do 
afterwards?"

"Of course," I said. "Holmes arranged for me to throw a 
plumber's smoke rocket through an open window. Then he 
began shouting fire as the smoke spread and Miss Adler 
ran to retrieve the most valuable item in the house 
from its hiding place -- and the most valuable item in 
her possession was the compromising picture of herself 
with the Crown Prince of . . .  well, no matter which 
Prince it was."

"Exactly, Doctor, exactly," Wiggins said. "I never 
forgot that little trick, so I arranged to have a 
secret pocket sewn in each of my girl’s bustles with a 
smoke rocket in each one. There was a fireplace in each 
room and the girls both knew what to do as soon as they 
were left alone. They lit their rockets, dropped them 
in the fireplaces, stuffed the fireplaces with carpets 
to keep from suffocating from the smoke and waited for 
the fire brigade to arrive to put out the chimney 
fires. As soon as they heard the fire wagon bells 
ringing and fists banging on the front door they began 
firing off their pistols, screaming and blowing police 
whistles. Of course the firemen cut the doors down with 
their axes to find out what was afoot, with the police 
not far behind, and everything was soon settled in fine 
style."

"Good gracious, how clever, Mr Wiggins," Miss Oakes 
said admiringly. "Are you suggesting that I should also 
carry a pistol and one of these pocket rockets?"

"Why, I'm sure I'd be happy to give you a pocket rocket 
whenever you like, Miss Oakes." Wiggins said gravely 
and again I noticed a quiver in my fair guest's frame 
as she struggled to contain her emotions. No doubt she 
was, like Mrs Hudson, embarrassed by her circumstances. 
"But perhaps I can give you better than that to take 
along with you."

"What do you mean, exactly, Wiggins?" I asked.

"I'm thinking aloud, Doctor," Wiggins answered me, his 
brows knitted in concentration. "It's like I've said 
before, I'm worried that this person who's to collect 
Miss Maude might somehow give us the slip at a busy 
place like Euston station. I'm wondering if I should 
send Angel and Christine along with Miss Maude to the 
station as an extra precaution. She can say to whoever 
meets her that she's prepared to let her photograph be 
taken but she wants the girls to come along as 
chaperones, as you might say."

Miss Oakes leaned forward in keen interest at hearing 
Wiggins' suggestion: "Oh, that does sound like a good 
idea. But the letter says I must go alone. Do you think 
I'll still be approached if I have two other girls with 
me?"

Wiggins rubbed his chin: "That's what I don't know, 
Miss Maude, but if I was a lackey charged with such a 
task I think I would not stand high in my employer's 
estimation if I found you waiting as agreed and didn't 
bring you back simply because of two other girls being 
with you. After all, they couldn't be the peelers, 
could they, because there's no such thing as female 
police officers, thank the Lord."

He grinned at both of us at such an impossible idea and 
then became serious again.

"Look, Miss Maude, if this cove who sent you the letter 
only wants a photo then he won't mind two more females 
being there. And if he's got worse planned for you, 
then the more the merrier, hey? No point in dwelling on 
such details but think of it this way. You send a 
servant out to buy a loaf of bread and he comes back 
with the loaf and two free ones as well. Well, wouldn't 
that servant think he'd done well and deserved praise 
for bringing in the extra rations? I judge that's how 
your collector will think and he'll let the girls come 
with you rather than go back to his master empty 
handed."

Miss Oakes nodded eagerly to show her understanding 
while I pondered over Wiggins’ words.

"But what instructions will you give your girls, 
Wiggins?"

"Well, Doctor, in the first place, to help us follow 
the party. There's tricks they can use. A piece of 
colored chalk hidden in the toe of a shoe lets you put 
marks on the ground to leave a trail. Very useful long 
skirts are for concealing that. And the girls have a 
notepad of green paper hanging inside their skirts with 
a slit in the sides to reach through, and a pencil 
hanging there as well, so they can write an address on 
the paper once they've heard it. They've learned to do 
that with their hands inside their skirts though it's 
taken them a deal of time to get the knack of it."

"For what purpose?

"Why, say they're being taken away in a cab with some 
of my irregulars tagging behind. Once they've heard the 
address they can write it down without being seen, 
crumple up the paper and then generally find a way of 
dropping it out of the cab. My lads notice that scrap 
of green paper, being it's such an unusual color, they 
read the address and then it doesn't matter if they 
lose the cab in the traffic, for they know where it's 
going."

"That's clever, Wiggins, clever," I admitted. "But what 
if the worse should occur and Miss Maude and your young 
ladies should be spirited away and lost touch with 
completely?"

Wiggins spread his hands apart as if making a good 
natured concession of a temporary check.

"Then perhaps the smoke rocket trick will work again, 
Doctor. And if all else fails Christina and Angel will 
have their pistols ready and loaded as final 
arguments."

"In their garter belts Mr Wiggins?" Maude asked.

He grinned: "In a manner of speaking, Miss Maude. I 
told you about the slits in their skirts so they can 
reach inside them to write a note in secret. Well, the 
girls each have a holster sewn onto their corsets, and 
they can reach in through the same slits in their 
skirts and produce a loaded gun in a flash. That's a 
trick which usually takes the villains by surprise."

"But would they be prepared to use the firearms if 
necessary?" I asked. "After all, they are only 
females."

"Bless you, doctor," Wiggins said cheerfully, "Angel 
and Chrissy were brought up in the docks around 
Wapping. They'd blow up Parliament for me if I promised 
them a guinea apiece and a bottle of gin to share 
afterwards. Were you to look at their bonnets closely 
you'd find each of the little demons has got a cut 
throat razor blade sewn into the brim. Some sailors who 
pressed the chase too closely on that pair have gone 
back aboard with more stitches in their faces than in 
their sails."

"Good gracious," Miss Watson responded. "They seem like 
useful companions to have. But what about me? Can I 
also take a pistol with me?"

Wiggins chuckled and held up a warning finger: "Ah, it 
takes a while how to deal comfortably with a loaded 
pistol, Miss Maude. Accidents can happen very easily. 
The last thing we'd want is for you to be having a 
sudden explosion going off in your underclothing."

This time I was almost sure that Miss Oakes was on the 
verge of hysteria as she bent forward with her 
shoulders shaking. Yet when I offered my assistance she 
waved me away and tapped at her throat as if clearing 
it from a coughing attack.

"No, Miss Maude," Wiggins continued. "Pistols are 
fearfully dangerous things to be carried around unless 
you've been trained to them. But if you were to have an 
empty gun you couldn't do yourself any harm with that, 
and any blaggard you point it at won't know it's empty. 
Of course you'd have to come back to my office for the 
girls to fit you up with a holster."

"A holster? Sewn onto my corsets?"

"Oh, I think we might have one in your size already. 
One of our special sets of ladies' undergarments I 
mean. The girls will find you somewhere you can use as 
a fitting room. And they can tell you some of the 
tricks of their line of work before we go out this 
afternoon."

This was all happening far too hastily for my peace of 
mind.

"Wait a moment, Wiggins" I said. "I don't like this at 
all. To put Miss Oakes in danger merely because of a 
stolen tennis racket still seems to me to be the height 
of foolishness. Miss Maude, I beg of you, please 
reconsider the whole matter and simply reconcile 
yourself to playing with a new racket."

She shook her head and then stood up as straight backed 
with pride as a British Grenadier under fire: "No, 
Doctor, I thank you for your concern and for your help 
but I am determined to go ahead with this venture. I'm 
sure I can do no better than place myself in Mr 
Wiggins' capable hands."

"And very welcome you'll be in them, I'm sure, Miss 
Maude," Wiggins answered heartily. I thought for a 
second I saw him wink at her as he spoke but I must 
have been mistaken. He would never have dared to be so 
familiar with a well bred client.

"Very well," I conceded. "If that is your decision, 
Miss Maude, I can only applaud your courage and wish 
you God speed. Wiggins, is there anything I can do to 
help?"

"Why, no, Doctor, I don't think so, not at the moment. 
But if you were to stay here I'd know where to send for 
you if required."

"Very well. The best of luck to both of you."

I felt desperately ill used by circumstances as the 
pair of them left. Both young, strong determined, ready 
for anything. And all I was fit for was to doze beside 
the fireside like a rheumatic old blood hound. Curse 
this gout!

Yet there is one odd circumstance about that meeting I 
still have to recount. For as he was leaving Wiggins 
suddenly noticed my top hat on the stand and turned 
back to me.

"Doctor, could I ask a favor and beg for the loan of 
your stethoscope."

"Good Lord, what do you want that for?" I asked.

"It's for a purpose I can't explain now. But I'll see 
you get it back very soon."

"Very well, go ahead and take it."

Wiggins picked up my hat and removed the stethoscope 
from its usual carrying place inside the crown.

"Thank you, Doctor."

The door closed and I sat alone by the fireplace again, 
waiting to hear the sound of Wiggins' hail for a cab 
coming through the opened window. Oddly, though, after 
about five minutes I still hadn't heard his voice and I 
wondered if their departure had been delayed for some 
reason. I rose, hobbled to the door and opened it. And 
down below I heard some odd high pitched cries, almost 
human in tone.

'Not that confounded parrot?' I thought to myself. 
'Wiggins is surely not wasting his time with Mrs 
Hudson's parrot when matters are so urgent?'

Yet there were certainly some strange noises coming 
from below, sounding almost like a woman in distress. I 
went down the staircase a few steps and leaned over to 
look down into the hall. And there I saw a most 
unexpected sight. Miss Oakes was standing by Mrs 
Hudson's door listening to the squawking sounds coming 
from the other side of the door -- not only listening, 
but with the stethoscope horns in her ears and the 
other end of the tube pressed flat against the door. 
Clearly she could thus overhear in great detail what 
was occurring in the room and she seemed totally 
preoccupied in her eavesdropping. In fact her face was 
flushed scarlet, her lips were wide open and her eyes 
seemed to be on the verge of bulging out of her head.

I could make nothing of this. If Maude was so 
interested in whatever Wiggins was doing with Mrs 
Hudson's parrot, surely she could have entered the room 
with him? And what was Wiggins thinking of to leave his 
client waiting in the hall while he played the part of 
an amateur vet with a moody macaw? That was no way to 
run a business.

Above all, though, I could make no sense of Maude's 
behavior. What on earth could Wiggins be doing inside 
Mrs Hudson's room that could have such an affect on the 
young lady? And then my astonishment became complete as 
I saw Miss Oakes kneel down with the stethoscope still 
at her ears and then place her eye against the keyhole 
of the door.

Well, here was a mystery that Holmes himself might have 
trouble in solving. It would certainly be a very 
difficult situation if Mrs Hudson opened the door to 
find Maude seemingly intent on spying into her 
quarters. And all because of a parrot! Which had now 
started calling out in a way which sounded like some 
fragment of human speech screeched out over and over 
again: two words, in fact. I couldn't quite catch the 
first one but the second sounded like "Me". "Duck me" 
or "Buck me", or some similar piece of nonsense that 
the bird must have picked up somewhere.

Amazing creatures, parrots, to imitate a woman's voice 
so well, though not worthy of the attention that Maude 
was giving to this specimen. Her whole posture was of 
total fixation on the sounds coming through the 
stethoscope and on whatever she was glimpsing through 
the keyhole. Truth to tell, I thought rather badly of 
Wiggins for letting Maude have the use of instrument. 
It was, after all, a medical device and therefore meant 
to be used by doctors, not women.

I could only conclude that there must be some good 
reason for the girl's behavior, odd as it presently 
appeared. After all, how many times had I seen Sherlock 
Holmes behave in an entirely inexplicable manner, only 
to discover afterwards that he'd had excellent reasons 
for doing so? This must be another such mystery which I 
would ask Wiggins to explain to me when next we met.

I therefore returned quietly to my room and pondered 
over the strange twist of fate which had come my way 
that morning. Strange, indeed, and yet all I could do 
to was to brood the afternoon away in my armchair 
whilst the game was afoot. If only Holmes was here!

Yet perhaps he was, in spirit at least, because I 
presently found myself feeling like Holmes himself at 
the prospect of a new case unfolding. Ennui replaced by 
energy, weariness by well being, a racing of the blood 
akin to an old soldier's response to a regimental band 
marching past. Where the prospect of action had Holmes 
pacing the rooms like a caged tiger I was affected to a 
much lesser but altogether beneficial degree, to the 
extent that my attack of gout faded away as quickly as 
it had come. I can offer no medical reason for this 
transformation but I was certain it was the excitement 
of the case and the thrill of the chase which was the 
stimulus for my sudden recovery. At any event, by the 
early afternoon I was walking around the rooms of 221B 
with complete ease.

The question was, what use should I make of this newly 
granted freedom? I had implied to Wiggins that I would 
remain at Baker Street for the afternoon, but 
circumstances alter cases. My circumstances had 
changed, I was able to walk again and it seemed 
intolerable to remain cooped up whilst the case was 
unfolding. Neither did there seem much point in going 
around to Wiggins' office merely to wait there for 
news.

No, I would go to Euston Station, I would be on 
platform six at three o'clock and serve as another pair 
of eyes. Whoever Mr 'Ardent Admirer' was he could have 
no idea that Miss Oakes had come to Sherlock Holmes' 
consulting rooms and even if he did it was very 
unlikely that he or his servants would know me by 
sight. So I could be just another passenger on the 
platform. Wiggins' people would also be watching and 
they probably wouldn't know me either, nor I them, but 
it was no matter. If I saw anything that Wiggins should 
know about I could quickly get word to Coneysale Road. 
No, there was no reason why I no attend at the 
miscreant's planned rendezvous and watch matters 
unfold. No harm could come from that, provided I 
remained at a discreet distance.

Whether or not I should try to follow Maude and her 
companions if they were led away was a different 
matter. As eager as I was to do so I might get in the 
way of Wiggins' watchers and distract them from the job 
in hand. No matter how I turned the matter over in my 
mind I found that I could not change my decision on 
that score. The tracking must be left to the 
professionals, leaving me behind with my fingers 
crossed in hope of their success. The beginning and 
ending of my involvement in the hunt would be at 
Euston, and only there.

Well, so be it. No chance for Watson to play the role 
of a knight in shining armor rescuing the fair damsel 
in distress. Regrettable, though at least I would have 
something to tell Holmes about when he returned. Little 
enough, no doubt, compared to his exploits amongst the 
bandits of the Balkans, but each of us must live our 
lives as they are doled out to us, whether in full or 
sparse ration.

The clock at Euston station still lacked a few minutes 
to three o'clock as I made my way down platform six in 
an unusually warm and humid atmosphere. The strong 
sunlight remained undimmed by any passing clouds and 
the acres of glass panels overhead were acting 
something in the manner of a greenhouse. Those closest 
to this trapped heat were the pigeons sitting on the 
maze of sooty girders underneath the station roof, most 
of them preferring to doze rather than taking wing to 
forage for food scraps.

Far below their perches a great mass of mankind was 
behaving very differently, either bustling around in 
great energy or waiting impatiently for their scheduled 
conveyance. Indeed, any curious bird might have 
wondered what had made a normally busy concourse even 
busier. But it would taken a very perspicacious pigeon 
indeed to notice that so many family groups of Homo 
Sapiens had left their dwellings today, or that the 
reason for this might have been deduced from the small 
buckets and spades some of the younger members of the 
species were clutching.

On the other hand the railway company porters, 
perspicacious or not, knew very well that this was the 
height of the holiday season, and that every Briton and 
his family were making their annual pilgrimage to the 
seaside. Many tips were being offered and accepted for 
the prompt movement of bags and baggage as Londoners 
followed the rest of the nation on their march to the 
beaches. There the children would build their sand 
castles and the adults would paddle in the salt water, 
their yearly tribute to the element which provides our 
passage to that one quarter of the world's population 
fortunate enough to live under the civilizing influence 
of the British Empire.

And, of course, to reach the sea, a Londoner first has 
to catch a train. Which was why I was finding it easy 
to move along the platform without drawing attention to 
myself. Not only was it crowded, but it was crowded 
with Paters and Maters and their offspring clustered 
together in chattering groups, the parents struggling 
to keep their children and luggage from getting mixed 
up with the adjoining families. I therefore chose the 
tactic of slowly circling each group and thus remaining 
behind cover as I kept my eyes skinned for Miss Oakes. 
I did not wish her to see me if possible because such a 
change in arrangements might startle and confuse her. A 
tactic which I carried out with success, though not at 
all in the way I had anticipated.

A man walking past me briskly suddenly checked his 
steps like a wherry hitting a king wave, his head 
swinging over as sharply as a gybed stun'sl. And when I 
followed his gaze I was rather stunned myself. Three 
girls were standing in a small group on their own, no 
men, no porters, no baggage. All three of them were 
wearing pure white linen dresses embroidered with pink 
silk ribbons: on their heads were wide brimmed white 
hats, also beribboned and additionally decorated with 
pink flowers. In their hands the girls idly swung 
matching white and pink folded parasols. The whole 
effect would have been utterly charming even if the 
girls had not been what they were.

It was the one on the left I looked at first, and drew 
in my breath in appreciation, for she was tall and 
graceful with a figure that Reuben himself could have 
drawn inspiration from, full yet fine lined, and a joy 
to behold. Behind her proud head was a neat bun of 
blonde hair, her pleasant features carried a broad 
smile and even at my distance from the group I could 
sense her joy in the constant self awareness of her 
youth and beauty. Indeed, it was that unbounding 
essence of life in her which even an artist of genius 
could have only hinted at. My eyes moved across to her 
companion and my jaw, I'm sure, fell open in shock. For 
both of the girls was alike as two peas in a pod, alike 
in form and in face, even alike in the dab of freckles 
across both pert noses.

Twins! Twin sisters! And how odd that they should look 
so fashionable without being members of the upper 
classes. Which I was sure they were not, because such a 
matching pair of beauties would have certainly have 
featured in the pages of the society papers had their 
family any claim at all to public attention. I sought 
to see the features of the third white clad girl in the 
hope of gaining a clue as to their identity. For the 
moment, I freely admit, I had almost forgotten about 
Miss Oakes, as I tried to catch a glimpse of the face 
hidden behind the twins' hats.

Suddenly the tallest of the figures raised her head to 
look up at the platform clock, my view was unblocked 
and I was struck such a paralyzing blow of shock as 
must have befallen Lot's wife as she looked back at the 
destruction of Sodom. My search for Maude Oakes was 
over and I almost fell backwards onto a providentially 
empty bench seat, where I could both mop my brow and 
also hid my face behind the handkerchief as I tried to 
come to terms with the unexpected circumstances I had 
fallen into.

From Wiggins' descriptions of his girls I had imagined 
two gaunt, tangled hair drabs with shifty eyes wearing 
cast off clothing. Of course a moment's reflection 
would have led me to realize that the more attractive 
his agents, the better the chances of them being taken 
away with Maude. But even so, that the young detective 
could have produced twin sisters dressed in the height 
of fashion and looking like Duke's daughters was beyond 
my comprehension. And why the devil was Maude dressed 
in the same way as... hmm... yes, Angel and Chrissie? 
Why had the calico print brown dress she had worn at 
Baker Street been replaced with the same fashionable 
dresses as the sisters?

Well, one more quick glance was enough to answer that 
question. Because Angel and Chrissie were tall and good 
looking and blonde, and in those virginal white and 
pink dresses they could have charmed the Lord Chief 
Justice of England off his bench with the wink of a 
sparkling eye. But with Maude with them, in the same 
rig, it was as if all the golden Maidens of the Rhine 
had come to life together and to London for their 
spring outfits. As a trap to catch a libertine, a man 
who lusted after strapping young women like Maude, it 
was a trap with the best bait imaginable displayed 
inside its iron jaws. Perhaps the only thing which 
would appeal more to the depraved lusts of 'The Ardent 
Admirer' than Maude herself would be the opportunity to 
commit gross outrages on a pair of twin sisters held at 
his pleasure. If his messenger knew anything at all 
about his master's tastes he would know that much, and 
happily, thrice happily, take all the girls with him, 
as we hoped he would do.

'Wiggins... Wiggins!' I muttered under my breath and 
into my handkerchief.

I was expressing sentiments of both shock at the young 
detective’s brilliant insight into the criminal mind 
and his equally brilliant planning to capture the 
criminal himself. Even the great Holmes would need to 
take care in future, lest the Master find himself 
overtaken by the Pupil.

Therefore, it was with the highest degree of 
expectation that I continued to survey the scene, 
though keeping my face lowered against the small chance 
of Maude noticing me. Certainly she began looking 
around her with great intensity as the minute hand on 
the clock dragged itself around for the final circuit 
before marking three. But she never noticed me, and I 
saw no sign of anybody approaching except for three 
porters with a hand cart piled high with luggage. 

So high in fact that as one of them pushed the cart 
along the other two walked on either side and held on 
to the top layer of wicker baskets to prevent them from 
toppling off the cart. This was a very bothersome 
interruption at such a moment, but there was further 
annoyance yet as a small shunting locomotive in the 
green and gold colors of the London and North Eastern 
Railway came steaming down the side of the platform. 
Behind it was a single passenger coach, and a guard's 
van behind that, nothing else. On the destination board 
were the words: 'FOR PRIVATE USE ONLY'.


I snarled under my breath as I saw that the train 
driver was clearly intending to come to a halt at the 
very spot where the three girls were standing. Perhaps, 
I thought, he was under the impression that they were 
something to do with whoever had hired the private 
train. What a foul piece of luck, for such an 
unexpected turn of events might well frighten off the 
messenger we were waiting for. And, unbelievably, at 
the same moment as the passenger car stopped by the 
girls, the porters halted the luggage cart in front of 
them, cutting them off from my sight. I wondered what 
had made the confounded idiots stop there, of all 
places, and cursed all three of them as they all walked 
around to the far side of the cart. Perhaps the wheel 
on that side was working loose.

Yes, I confess it, I was not as quick as Holmes would 
have been in understanding what was happening. But I 
appeal to your own sense of reason, dear reader. A 
hired train and a gang of desperadoes disguised as 
railway porters -- who would have expected such 
resources from a mere filthy minded blackmailer? 
Certainly not I. Yet when I saw the tip of a parasol 
held aloft above the baskets on the cart and waved 
vigorously for a second or so it was enough to shake 
the scales from my eyes. For I was sure it was an alarm 
signal. Nor was it the only signal being given because 
the guard was already  waving his green flag at the 
locomotive and blowing his whistle to grant it 
permission to depart within mere seconds of its 
arrival.

I jumped up from the bench and rushed forward as the 
train's wheels began to turn. One glance behind the 
cart was enough to confirm my suspicions. Nobody was 
there, nobody at all and the coach door already 
closing. I was dumbfounded at what had happened, at how 
Wiggins' close laid surveillance plans had gone all 
a'gley so quickly. There was nobody in his organization 
who was in place to take a hand, nobody but myself. As 
the guard's van rolled past me I stepped onto the rear 
platform, to be confronted by an indignant railway 
official in full dress blackcloth uniform, gold braided 
hat and white side whiskers.

"Now then, sir, what game do you think you're a'playing 
at? I can have you taken up by the police for setting 
foot on this on this here van without permission."

"Guard, my name is Watson, Doctor John Watson. I'm the 
friend and confidant of Mr Sherlock Holmes, the well 
known consulting detective."

He surveyed me from boots to hat. A stout man with red 
cheeks behind his white whiskers and careful eyes 
finally matched by an equally careful nodding of his 
head.

"Why so, I believe you might be, sir. You certainly 
look like the pictures of Doctor Watson I've seen in 
the papers. Would you happen to have a card on you?"

I opened my card case and gave him one of my cards. He 
read it slowly, then looked up at me: "What brings you 
aboard my train then, Doctor?"

I found it difficult to reply, bearing in mind the need 
for absolute discretion about the case. Then I realized 
there was no need to admit any specific interest in the 
girls.

"Because I fear something may be amiss here, Guard. Did 
you not see three porters get into the coach just now 
with the three ladies who were waiting on the platform? 
How can that be?"

The guard smiled and shook his head: "Very smart of you 
to spot it, Doctor Watson, but I was warned in advance 
about those porters. They're not real porters at all, 
of course, just some young bloods who wanted to play a 
joke on their girls. The station master himself warned 
me about it while we were writing up my running 
orders."

"Indeed?" I queried. "Has Euston Station now become a 
music hall for the staging of pantomime shows?"

The Guard's smile was unshaken: "Why, Doctor, when 
you're dealing with people who can afford to run their 
own trains it often happens that you get some odd 
requests. I had a terrible time once with the Marquis 
of Gransby. He saw some mushrooms in a meadow from his 
train and nothing would do for it but that I must stop 
the train while he sent his cook out to pick them for 
breakfast. Stopped on a main line, mark you, with the 
Hasting Flyer coming up behind us at sixty miles an 
hour. He would have had me sacked if I'd refused, so I 
had to spin him a yarn that all the mushrooms in the 
area around were known to be deadly poisonous. Compared 
to that caper, this little prank with the young ladies 
is just water off a duck's back to me."

"I see. And who was it who ordered this train?"

The Guard shook his head: "I'm sorry, Doctor, I don't 
know. I didn't ask and the Station Master didn't tell 
me, even assuming he knew himself. Now, what's to be 
done with you? We've passed the station limits by now 
and we're not due for another stop until we reach our 
destination. I'm sure it was very public spirited of 
you to inquire about the ladies' welfare but if I stop 
at any of the stations enroute to drop you off we'll 
cause a lot of disruption to the company's running 
schedules. Better perhaps that you make the round trip 
with us and I'll return you to Euston nice and quietly 
with nobody the wiser. We're not going far at all."

The van was rolling from side to side as it went over a 
whole series of points, high cliffs of bluegray brick 
were closely abutting on either side of the small train 
and rows of houses perched above the cutting walls 
looked like pigeon lofts.

"Come inside, Doctor, it'll get draughty out here as we 
pick up speed."

The Guard ushered me through the door which gave 
admittance to the interior of his van, then stepped 
inside himself up to a writing stand. He consulted his 
pocket watch, dipped a pen in the inkwell on the stand 
and carefully made an entry into an opened journal set 
on the stand. I was irresistibly reminded of a ship's 
captain writing up his logbook on the bridge of a large 
steamer.

"What is our destination, then?" I asked him.

"Halton Manor, Doctor. Not above fifteen miles away. It 
used to be a gunpowder factory but it was closed up 
some years ago. Now there's just the old buildings and 
the branch line into the siding where they used to load 
the powder onto the trains. I only hope the points 
haven't rusted up, for I'm sure this is the first time 
any mainline traffic has been in there since the 
factory was shut."

"So what possible reason could anybody have for wanting 
to travel to such a place?"

The Guard shrugged: "I don't know, Doctor, but if the 
company hires out a train, it's only real concern is 
that the fee is paid. Where the customer wants to go to 
is up to him. Why, do you wish me to make some sort of 
investigation? I'd need some real proof of wrong doing, 
or it could cost me my job if I upset some high ranking 
peer who has paid a pile of golden sovereigns to hire 
this train."

I reflected on his words and tried to decide what to do 
for the best. On one hand I was very unhappy about the 
way things were shaping. "Ardent Admirer' was proving 
an artful dodger indeed. Of course it had always been a 
possibility that Maude could have been taken away from 
a railway station on a train, but following her onto a 
normal train would have been easy. This unexpected use 
of a private train smacked all too much of cleverness 
and considerable resources for my taste. On the other 
hand unless the journey was completed without 
interference there would be no chance for Maude to 
retrieve her racket.

"What's your name, Guard?"

"Protheroe, Doctor, James Protheroe."

"Well, Mr Protheroe, would it be possible to drop me 
off discreetly at this place, this Halton Manor, 
without the occupants of the coach seeing me?"

"Certainly, I think that would be possible, Doctor." I 
noticed a sudden gleam of excitement appear in his 
eyes. "And would you be wanting me to pass any kind of 
a message onto Mr Holmes afterwards? I've always been a 
great admirer of his, you understand."

Once again I marvelled at the almost overwhelming 
amount of interest the British public always showed in 
the affairs of Sherlock Holmes. But who could blame 
them? Certainly, not I, having devoted so much of my 
life to recording the great man's achievements because 
of my own fascination at his manifold accomplishments.

"Unfortunately, Mister Holmes is abroad at the moment 
on a most confidential mission," I explained. "But you 
may certainly send a telegram to some associates of 
mine the moment you return to Euston. Tell me, which is 
the closest station to Halton Manor and how far away is 
it?"

Protheroe stepped up to a finely detailed map on the 
van's bulkhead highlighting a web of metropolitan rail 
lines and placed his thumb up against it. "The nearest 
station to Halton Manor, Doctor? That would be Hathaway 
station, two miles closer to London on the down line."

"The down line?" I stood next to him to see where his 
thumb rested.

"All the lines with trains driving away from London on 
them are called down lines, all lines into London are 
up lines," Protheroe explained. "So after we run 
through Hathaway station, Halton Manor is two miles 
further on."

I examined the map. "This road, the Gravesend Road, it 
runs past Halton Manor and Hathaway?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"And trains run regularly today Euston to Hathaway?"

"Every thirty minutes, regular as clockwork, Doctor."

"And a party who wished to could bring bicycles with 
them on the train to Hathaway? In the Guard's van?"

"Certainly. For threepence extra each, of course."

"So the quickest way to Halton Manor from Euston is to 
take a train to Hathaway Station and then cycle the two 
miles further along the Gravesend Road?"

"That would be right, Doctor. Unless you was to travel 
on one of Professor Herr Von Zeppelin's airships." Mr 
Protheroe smiled at his own joke.

"Thank you, I'll write out the telegram now then, with 
your leave."

I was as quick as I could be in writing out the wire to 
be sent to Wiggins' office, alerting the young 
detective to the changed circumstances. I was sure that 
some of his watchers must have seen me board the train, 
and even if I wasn't known to any of them personally my 
description must have alerted their employer as to the 
identity of the civilian seen stepping onto the Guard's 
van. Thereafter Wiggins would certainly have remustered 
his forces at his offices, ready to respond as soon as 
possible to any message from me.

That was on the positive side of things. On the 
negative side, no help could possibly arrive for at 
least two hours, and, even worse, I had seen no reason 
to bring my old service revolver with me on a mere 
sight seeing trip. Oh well, in life as in medicine, one 
problem at a time. The problem at that moment was to 
form my letters legibly as I stood at the van's writing 
stand bracing myself against the swaying floor of the 
vehicle. It was difficult to judge its speed with only 
four small windows to look out of but I was sure we 
must have been travelling at quite fifty miles an hour.

I blotted the telegram, put in the Guard's pen back in 
the inkwell and gave him the paper and a sovereign for 
transmission costs: "As quickly as possible with this 
to the cable office please, Mr Protheroe, on your 
return to Euston."

"Of course, Doctor Watson." His eyes were more careful 
than ever. "But look here, Doctor, if you're really 
convinced there's some wrong doing going on, perhaps 
you should tell me about it.  After all, a man of your 
reputation and contacts isn't just an ordinary member 
of the public. I could order the driver to stop at 
Hathaway and then summon a member of the railway 
constabularly. If you feel that such action is 
necessary."

I reflected on his suggestion and then again. For two 
pins I would have done as Protheroe suggested. The only 
reasons I didn't was because I knew how much Maude 
wanted a chance to recover her racket and, far more 
importantly to my mind, the scandal which would surely 
sully her reputation if this matter were ever became 
public knowledge.

"No, thankee, Mr Protheroe. I need to follow this scent 
but it's not yet time to shout tallyho. What happens 
when we get to Halton Manor?"

"The siding is on a slight downgrade there, so we'll 
fly shunt. Half a mile away I'll put a touch of brakes 
on the van, the fireman will climb down and uncouple 
the coach from the engine, the engine will pull ahead 
and set the fireman down to throw over the points into 
Halton Manor and remove the derailer. He'll give me the 
all clear hand signal and coach and van will roll into 
the siding with my hands on the brake handle to control 
the speed. I'll bring us to a stand beside the old 
factory loading platform, apply the brakes on the coach 
and scotch the wheels, uncouple the van and then the 
engine will come in behind us, pick up the van and take 
it back to Euston after I've reset and padlocked the 
main line points for the straight again."

"I see..."

Well, to be truthful, I thought I had a general idea of 
what the Guard was talking about.

"So if I wanted to get off without anybody in the coach 
seeing me, what would you suggest?"

Mr Protheroe tugged at his mutton chop whiskers as he 
considered. "Well, Doctor, as I remember that siding, 
the platform comes to a dead stop at the mainline end. 
Were you to step over it you'd fall straight down for 
about five feet, like stepping off the top of a wall. 
When I stop the coach in the middle of the platform the 
further end of my van will just about be in line with 
that end of the platform. All you need do is to step 
down from the van and crouch yourself down to be out of 
sight from the coach and anybody crossing the 
platform."

"That sounds well enough."

"To start with, Doctor, to start with," the Guard 
continued, doubt in his voice. "But I don't know what 
may happen after that, not knowing what the parties in 
the coach intend to do, nor which direction they may 
move off in."

"Never mind about me, Mr Protheroe. I've had a fair 
amount of experience in such matters. No one will see 
me until I choose to display my presence."

"Very well, Doctor, if you say so. In any case we must 
be getting close to Halton Manor now. Better perhaps 
that you wait in here until I call you."

He went out onto the back platform of the van and left 
me to squint through one of the windows at a passing 
parade of back gardens in one of the respectable 
suburbs of north London. Twice we rattled over a bridge 
and the road underneath each of them, then through a 
station, groups of waiting people on the platform 
lifting their heads up from their opened newspapers to 
glance at this unscheduled bird of passage with its 
single coach and privileged passengers. Where they were 
standing in the open, the still high and bright sun 
cast their own foreshortened shadows at the watchers' 
feet. It also lit up the station sign -- "HATHAWAY 
(TWICKENHAM)". So not far to the siding now.

I suddenly felt extremely thirsty and noticed a small 
stove at one corner of the van with a kettle standing 
on it. The stove was unlit, but there was water in the 
kettle, and a tin mug hanging off a hook. I was sure 
that Mr Protheroe would have no objections to sparing 
me a mug of water, and so I helped myself. As I began 
drinking I felt a shuddering underfoot and heard some 
unearthly squealing noises as the guard began to 
tighten the van's brakes.

At first their application seemed to have little effect 
in reducing our velocity, and then the short train gave 
a kind of twitch and began to slow much more rapidly. I 
squinted through one of the windows but could see 
nothing of the locomotive from it because it was on the 
right of the van and the track was curving to the left.

A hasty movement across the van to the opposite window 
afforded me a clearer view and I was able to see that 
the small locomotive had already uncoupled from the 
passenger car and was now drawing ahead with the 
fireman clearly visible as he stood on the side steps 
of the coal tender. Then the track straightened out and 
I lost sight of the locomotive. The van brakes were 
still creaking away like an overloaded haywain's axles 
and we were now moving at no more than a fast horse 
trot. I suddenly recalled Mr Protheroe's remarks about 
the possibility of the points no longer being workable 
because of their infrequent use: would we, in that 
event, find ourselves running into the stopped 
locomotive?

Still, no doubt the railwaymen were used to dealing 
with such situations and were prepared for any 
eventuality. So I reassured myself until we rolled 
through another curve in the line and I saw the 
locomotive halted in an halo of smoke about two hundred 
yards ahead, with the fireman twenty yards or so closer 
to the approaching passenger car. One of his arms was 
held out straight from his shoulder and I hoped that 
this was an indication that everything was as it should 
be.

And so indeed it proved to be as the passenger car and 
guard's van changed direction on the points and rolled 
away from the main line at what was now a brisk walking 
pace. The whole manoeuvre seemed to me to be admirably 
timed and executed. I glanced out of the rear door of 
the van and saw Mr Protheroe leaning to his right as he 
looked down the line to the approaching platform. 
Standing before him was the round horizontal wheel 
which controlled the brake shoes. Evidently choosing 
his moment, he gave the wheel another quarter turn, the 
brakes began to squeal again and I smelt the aroma of 
scorching wood in the air. His head turned inwards and 
he observed my presence at the door.

"Only a hundred yards to go, Doctor, then you may 
descend," he said. "Nice and carefully, please, for 
these ballast stones are treacherous stuff to walk on 
if you're not used to them."

I nodded and gripped my walking stick as if I already 
had need of it. Protheroe seemed intent on judging the 
distance ahead. He slackened off the brake wheel a 
little to let van and car drift a few yards further on, 
then reapplied the wheel quickly, as hard on as he 
could turn it in a sudden burst of energy. The two 
coupled vehicles came to a complete halt as the last of 
their momentum was absorbed into the brakes, and the 
end of a railway platform was directly abutting the 
rear platform of the guards van when it finally came to 
a stand.

"Neat work, Mr Protheroe."

"Thankee, Doctor. Now I'll walk forward to secure the 
car. In the meantime you can get off whenever you're 
ready."

"Excellent, excellent. And you'll be as prompt as 
possible with that wire. Mr Protheroe?"

"No need to worry about that, Doctor," he reassured me. 
"It'll get sent as soon as it can be."

Which I was sure was so. Mr Protheroe was a  
responsible man with a responsible job and could be 
trusted, of that I was certain. Now for my own task. As 
the guard set off down the train I descended on the 
other side, crouching as low as I could as I stepped 
off the van and into the shelter of the platform. Then 
I risked a quick look over the top of the platform at 
the passenger car. There was no sign of the people 
within it, no opened door nor window. It seemed likely 
that those inside preferred to remain discretely out of 
sight until the railway employees had left. So what was 
I to do? I examined the area that I now found myself in 
with a further series of cautious glances.

There was no building on the platform itself. In fact 
it was only a few steps wide, with the rusting remains 
of two cranes somewhat in the center and an access ramp 
in the very middle. Clearly, the procedure had been to 
bring two horses onto the platform to walk up and down 
it, thus drawing on the crane pulleys so they could 
lift barrels of gunpowder out of carts drawn up 
alongside the platform. The loaders would then rotate 
the cranes over the waiting railway cars, guide the 
horses backwards to sway the barrels down, and then 
repeat the process ad infinitum. There was a small 
bluestone building close to the unloading area, 
obviously once a clerk's office, though now long 
abandoned, with water stains in the rotting window 
frames. It seemed to be of no interest to me, or to 
anybody else.

This was a complete mystery to me. I had expected that 
the girls would have been picked up by a cab or a 
carriage to be conveyed to some private house, but 
there was no sign of such a thing. Perhaps it would 
appear as soon as the locomotive had departed. But 
where would it be hidden in the meantime? On the far 
side of the track was only an expanse of clinkers and 
rough ground between the rusting steel lines and the 
high wall which marked the limits of the old mill's 
grounds. Behind the weighman's office was a different 
story altogether though. There was a place which could 
have held a dozen carriages whilst keeping them 
completely out of sight.

The outer perimeter of this feature was marked by an 
inclined grassy slope about ten feet high which formed 
part of a circle of some hundred feet in radius, with 
one visible opening opposite the loading platform. Seen 
on the Sussex Downs a casual observer might well have 
taken it for one of the ancient barrows left by our 
Anglo-Saxon forefathers. But in this setting, and in 
this place, it told a different story to an ex-army 
doctor. Those raised earthworks marked a temporary 
storage magazine for the barrels of gunpowder waiting 
shipment, designed to protect the area around it from 
any accidental explosion, with the top deliberately 
left unroofed so that no tiles or beams could be blown 
aloft to fall into the suburban streets in the event of 
a detonation. Yes, that was certainly what it was and 
if there was a conveyance hidden hereabouts, that was 
were it would likely be hidden.

I felt the blood quicken in my veins at the thought. 
Could a coach really be waiting within the old 
magazine? A glance at the entrance was enough to show 
that it was ungated and of sufficient width -- as it 
had had to be, of course, to afford access to the mill 
wagons. So, yes, the transport the gang in the carriage 
were waiting for must indeed be hidden inside the 
magazine. I remembered Wiggins' words about how his 
girls had sometimes been able to leave clues as to 
where a hansom was bound for. Such an achievement was 
beyond me but if only I could get close enough to the 
vehicle I might be able to furnish an accurate enough 
description of it for Wiggins to locate it. After all, 
it was unlikely to be going far, and with a dozen hard 
pedalling cyclists available, once Wiggins and his 
party arrived, there must be a good chance of finding 
it again...

Well, a desperate chance perhaps, but this was a 
desperate affair. And if I could once get around the 
back of the magazine it should be easy enough to 
scramble up the sloping ramparts and peer over the edge 
of them, whilst secure in the knowledge that no one in 
the passenger car could see me. Which was all very 
well, but there was at least fifty yards of open space 
between the platform and the nearest part of the 
magazine wall where I would be hidden from sight of the 
carriage. How was I to cross that open space without 
being seen from the carriage windows?

A screech from behind almost caused me to jump up in 
surprise. For a second I thought I was back in Cawnpore 
with a male elephant in musk trampling down the 
regimental tents, broken tethering chains dragging in 
the dust behind it. In this case though it was another 
beast of burden making the noise, one made of iron and 
well under control. The locomotive had entered the 
siding behind us, giving a warning whistle blast as it 
approached the van. 

The fireman was riding at the very front, on the 
opposite side of the engine to me, his eyes fixed on 
the rear of the van and concentrating on judging the 
distance still to go as he gave hand signals to the 
driver. What immediately caught my attention was the 
reason that the fireman was on the opposite side -- it 
was because the wind was blowing from that side and the 
smoke from the locomotive's chimney was rolling along 
in reasonably thick clouds in more or less the 
direction I wished to go.

Here was a stroke of luck meant to be taken advantage 
of. As I braced my age stiffened knees for their best 
efforts the locomotive slowed down until the wheels 
were barely turning and then the fireman jumped nimbly 
to the ground, reaching in with a jemmy bar to position 
the coupling ring. As steel clanked upon steel his eyes 
lifted up a fraction to see my respectably dressed 
figure crouching down behind the platform. The whites 
of the eyes in the man's coal dust grimed face expanded 
with surprise in a way which might have been comical 
under other circumstances.

Alas though, if I am to remain completely truthful in 
this account, I must admit that I presented an equally 
bizarre spectacle for I could think of nothing better 
to do that to raise my fingers to my lips, as if 
adjuring the man to silence in some childish game of 
hide and seek. With the smoke now serving admirably to 
cover my movements I left the scene and trotted as 
quickly as possible past the clerk's office and on to 
the magazine. No doubt I left an animated conversation 
going on behind me between driver and fireman, and the 
prospect of an even more animated one when they began 
to speak to Mr Protheroe.

Certainly, though, had I had the time and opportunity, 
I would have been glad to provide generous gratuities 
to all the crew members for their efforts because the 
amount of smoke from such a small engine was quite 
impressive. A gently rolling cloud thick enough to make 
it unlikely that anybody in the passenger car could see 
me within it. Unfortunately, it was too thick for a few 
seconds too long, but not long enough.

The sequence of events seemed to conspire against me on 
all counts. In the first instance I clung too closely 
to the smoke to realise I was heading almost directly 
for the magazine entrance. Next, the smoke from the 
locomotive suddenly dwindled to almost nothing for some 
reason. Thirdly, and much worst, I saw that the doors 
on the passenger car had now opened and an en-masse 
disembarkation appeared to be occurring. 

In my suddenly exposed situation I realised that I must 
be spotted from the platform with seconds unless I 
could take cover, and the only place of concealment 
available was to scuttle through the magazine entrance 
into the sheltering walls. A matter of Scylla and 
Charybdis, for if Ardent Admirer and his coachman were 
indeed waiting inside the magazine, I would be rushing 
straight into their arms. But to stay out in the open 
would be equally disastrous.

So, I hobbled between the open gates at my best speed, 
struggling at the same moment to draw my pocket knife 
from my coat and open it. It was my intention, if I did 
find a waiting vehicle inside, to attempt to slash 
through the traces and to startle the horses into 
bolting. By such means I might hold up the attempted 
abduction of the girls until Wiggins and the rest of 
the rescue party hove into sight.

Imagine then, my astonishment at entering the confines 
of the walls and finding myself standing at one end of 
a tennis court laid out with neat white lines on the 
freshly mowed grass, a net stretched across the middle, 
and an umpire's high chair standing at one side.  My 
utter astonishment indeed, for there was something else 
about the scene in front of me which made it as strange 
a sight as I have ever witnessed. Which is not a 
statement to be taken lightly from someone who has seen 
a street beggar turned into a respectable businessman 
with a wipe of a sponge, the living and the dead 
sharing the same coffin and a university professor 
swarming up the ivory covered walls of his own house 
with the facility of an ape. 

Yet it is true. For there were some twenty people 
standing and sitting in groups along the left hand side 
of the court, and none of them moved a muscle as I 
appeared. Not one head turned in my direction, not a 
figure stirred, not one man or woman. Each of the well 
dressed figures seemed to be in the grip of some drug 
which had frozen them as effectively as the wax models 
in Madame Toussad's.

A spasmodic clutch at my empty inner jacket pocket only 
reminded me once more of my stupidity in not bringing 
along the trusty Webley & Scott. All I had was my 
pocket knife and as fine a collection of shivers as had 
danced up and down my spine since I'd heard the howl of 
the Hound on the moors. However there was nothing for 
it but to step boldly forward and investigate, just as 
Holmes would have done had he been there. 

Although, I suppose, with his sharper insight, he would 
have instantly deduced what only became obvious to me 
when I was almost within arm's length of the nearest 
spectator: the reason they were all standing as still 
as dummies was because they were dummies. Exactly the 
kind of life-sized mannequins you can see in the 
windows of dressmakers and tailors, now removed from 
their usual display settings. So they could attend a 
tennis match?

I was at a complete loss to explain the situation. Then 
I noticed that behind the figures a canvas screen had 
been erected to a height of about eight feet along the 
entire length of the court. On the canvas was painted a 
view of yew trees and rolling parkland, and in the 
middle distance, a fine Georgian mansion with a round 
dome set atop the roof of one wing. 

It was exactly like the kind of backdrop painted on 
curtains at theatres to set a scene, which it did very 
well. An observer could stand on the other side of the 
court, on uncut rank grass and flowering weeds, with 
his back to the brick wall of the magazine, yet look 
across and easily imagine that he was by the side of a 
private tennis court set on some great country estate, 
watching a party of weekend guests waiting for a game 
which about to commence.

"My God!" I said aloud. "Maude!"

In an instant I realised what was intended by the evil 
mind which had lured the fairest maid of English tennis 
to this hidden place. Not only would she have to pose 
before his lecherous eyes, but in a way which would 
suggest that she had done so willingly before an 
audience at some weekend retreat of the social elite. 
Thus the blackmail effect of any photographs would be 
even more effective, and not only on Maude herself. 
What if that mansion and the scenery in the background 
had been drawn from real life? 

What damaging upheavals might not flow from the passing 
around of such photographs? God in heaven, could this 
be plot by a bunch of evil foreigners to unsettle the 
British nation by dragging the name of some noble and 
well connected family through the mire? If so, Maude 
and Wiggins and myself had completely failed to 
comprehend the magnitude of this case. No mere 
bagatelle of lustful villainy here, but a deep and 
dangerous plot drawn up by unscrupulous minds with 
great resources of money and base cunning. Even 
Moriaty, that Napoleon of crime, would never have 
stooped so low, nor conceived a plan of such 
unmitigated filthiness.

Before I could consider the situation any further I 
heard the sound of voices at the entrance to the 
magazine and I realised that I was within seconds of 
being discovered. There was nowhere I could run to, 
even if I'd been capable of running. Nowhere to hide 
either -- unless...

I stumbled towards the nearest tableau of motionless 
figures and joined it, in the middle, standing slightly 
back and between a lady wearing a feather trimmed hat 
and a gentleman attired in a sporting blazer of vivid 
stripes. I mean, of course, that I was standing beside 
two display figures who where wearing such clothing. 
Standing and trembling and yet trying to appear as 
motionless as the wax figurines ranged on either side 
of me. It was a desperate subterfuge, probably as 
equally hopeless as it was likely to be embarrassing 
when I was discovered. Yet what else could I do but try 
to remain undiscovered as part of that lifeless crowd 
until I found some way of rescuing Maude?

Imagine then my feelings at being in this position and 
hearing footsteps passing behind me. Several sets of 
feet and Maude's voice: "What are these people doing 
here? What's happening?

Another female voice answered, clear and yet defaced by 
a gutter Cockney accent: "They're only shop dummies, 
Miss Maude. There's some trickery going on here."

That must be either Angel or Chrissie, I realised. And 
then I remembered what Wiggins had said about how they 
were carrying concealed pistols on their persons. 
Surely one of them would soon get a chance to draw her 
firearm and put a swift stop to this vile business?

Somebody walked past me, almost brushing my clothing as 
he walked out onto the court. A man, a young man, 
wearing tennis clothes, a white shirt and flannels, 
and, incredibly, a papier mache party mask, moulded and 
painted to resemble the brutal features of a Japanese 
samurai warrior. Presumably the only possible reason 
for donning such a mask was to conceal the wearer's 
identity. This supposition was confirmed by another man 
who followed the first, also dressed in tennis whites 
and masked, this one crafted to resemble an African 
tribal chief.

The man in the Samurai mask was carrying a tripod, the 
African a large wooden box which he set down, opened 
and took out from within a modern and expensive camera. 
As the photographic apparatus was lifted out of its 
carrying box I clearly heard a feminine cry of alarm 
from nearby.

Hearing this, I gritted my teeth and waited for one of 
the girls to get the drop on the men, as I once heard a 
gentleman from Texas describe it. Yet instead of 
stillness caused by a threatening gun muzzle there was 
more bustle and action to my left.

Three more of the masked abductors appeared, carrying 
between them the umpire's chair, which they set down on 
the court near to the net. Again, each of the masks was 
a caricature, and each different. A Prussian officer, a 
pirate with an eye patch, a white faced clown. With the 
Samurai and the African erecting the camera, that made 
five of the young curs that I could see. How many more 
were there? And why were Wiggins' much vaunted female 
agents not drawing their weapons?

That was a question which was answered almost as soon 
as I saw the three girls walking out together onto the 
court. For following them were two more masked men. At 
the angle I first saw them it was impossible to make 
out the features painted on their masks. What I could 
see were the unsheathed swords each man had in his 
hand. Long thin blades, rapier blades, scarcely visible 
save for the sunlight glittering along their lengths, 
with the tips darting around behind the girls, 
sometimes jabbing into their linen dresses to elicit a 
cry of pain from the victim and a bound in the air like 
a startled deer. Clustered together, the captive 
females were driven forward by their tormentors as if 
they were nothing but cattle being herded into a market 
pen. Little wonder that neither Angel or Chrissie had 
attempted to draw their firearms under such 
circumstances, when the response would certainly be 
immediate and serious injury, if not worse.

Curse it, how was it possible for our plans to go so 
far awry?

Because, as I now realised, the plans had been made on 
faulty assumptions. Wiggins had thought there was but 
one man to deal with: a rich one, probably, and 
inflamed by lust, but merely one evildoer and a few 
servants. So three capable girls well prepared for the 
task could have been well expected to turn the tables 
on such a poltroon. If any of us could have foreseen 
the extent of this plot... well, certainly I wouldn't 
have found myself unarmed and standing like a dummy 
amongst other dummies, helpless to interfere in this 
monstrous plot. For even announcing my presence might 
be enough to startle one of the rapier wielding thugs 
into wounding Maude or one of the sisters. My God, the 
female tennis champion of England crippled by a sword 
thrust! It didn't bear thinking about.

Desperately I hoped that Wiggins would arrive soon, by 
some miracle which I knew in my heart to be impossible. 
But in the meantime the girls were standing close the 
umpire's chair, still huddled together like sheep 
surrounded by marauding wolves. Now I could see the 
visages on the masquerade masks worn by the guards with 
the drawn blades. 

The slanting eyes and the long moustaches of a Chinese 
Imperial Mandarin on one painted face, the warpaint of 
a Red Indian on the other. As the camera was set 
carefully upon its tripod the Prussian, the Pirate and 
the Clown moved forward with set purpose. Two of them 
seized the arms of one of the sisters, twisted them, 
forced her to step up against the side of the high 
chair: the other one, the Clown, produced two short 
lengths of cord from his pockets and used them to tie 
the girl's wrists at waist height to two of the chair 
legs. It was something she was unable to resist, not 
only with each of her arms being held but with a rapier 
point pricking her posterior as a further warning 
against any useless resistance.

Once the knots had been tied the other one of Wiggins' 
girls was treated in the same manner, so that the 
sisters were standing face to face and looking at each 
other through the framework of the chair, their heads 
below the level of the umpire's seat. Naturally, I 
wondered at the reason for these actions, although I 
was sure that they boded no good. Nor did I see any 
reason to change that opinion as Maude was secured to 
the rear of the chair in the same manner. The Samurai 
and the African moved the position of the camera a 
little, so it seemed to be pointed directly at one of 
the sisters, then the Samurai lifted up the black cloth 
at the back of the photographic device and placed his 
head underneath it.

Immediately, the Prussian put his hands on the blonde 
girl's waist in a thoroughly intimate and disgusting 
manner. One of his hands moved lower, against her very 
hip, then disappeared from sight. Astonished, I 
realised that the Prussian had either known or had 
quickly discovered that supposedly secret slit in the 
skirt which enabled the wearer to reach for the pistol 
hidden within.

But it was neither Angel nor Chrissie's hand which 
withdrew the shiny weapon and held it up for 
inspection. No, it was held in the Prussian's fingers 
and he seemed to wave the weapon in a kind of mock 
triumphal manner before presenting it to one of his 
fellow villains. Following which action, he pushed his 
hand back into the slit again and apparently began a 
grossly offensive search of discovery under the girl's 
skirt. 

A search which called forth the most heart rending 
cries of distress from his forlorn victim and a violent 
series of struggles, counteracted by the Prussian 
pressing himself against her in the lewdest manner, 
squeezing the girl between his strong body and the 
support bar between the chair legs. Eventually she 
could make no movement which would not further inflame 
his amorous desires. Sensing this. she stood still, 
until he put his other hand up to the front of her body 
and laid it on one of her bosoms. Yet even the struggle 
against that wanton outrage eventually subsided as her 
strength waned.

It was at that point she was apparently urged to face 
the camera so that the scene might be clearly recorded 
in every disgusting detail. And, I noticed, at an angle 
which much have also included in the background several 
of the dummy figures. I also noticed in every detail 
how flushed was Miss Oakes’ s face, and how wide her 
eyes were as she stared at the rough handling of her 
companion. 

With my honed deductive abilities, I realised that her 
appearance seemed almost identical with the behaviour 
she had displayed when listening at Mrs Hudson's door. 
A very strange observation indeed, and the only 
connecting link between the two occasions was that the 
molested girl was beginning to make sounds somewhat 
similar to those of Mrs Hudson's sick parrot. An odd 
coincidence. But I had no time to ponder it further as 
one of the molesters raised his head, his attention 
fixed for the space of a few heart beats on a few puffy 
clouds drifting past on the horizon.

In a flash of insight I realised how important it might 
be for the gang that conditions should remain as they 
were. In the strong sunlight the pictures should be 
near perfect reproductions. Doubtless that was one 
reason why this place was chosen, in the open air but 
completely isolated from view. Nor could the pretence 
of the painted background have been sustained within 
the bounds of a room. What a damned piece of work this 
was, and no way of stopping it on my own...

There was movement around the chair, masked figures 
moving around it, closing in again. This time the 
Pirate had his hand inside the girl's skirt while both 
the Red Indian and the Clown toyed with her bosoms. 
Another short and useless struggle on her part, and 
then the Pompeian tableau was held in animation for a 
second or so as another plate was exposed and then 
removed from the camera. In the meantime the Prussian 
had walked past Miss Oakes, slapping her posterior as 
he did so, her jaw dropping with shock at such 
insolence. Then he stepped up behind the other sister 
and disarmed her, the Mandarin standing close by to 
take the pistol. And, as everybody there now expected 
would happen, his hand went back inside the captive 
maiden's skirt to perform actions which should have no 
place at all outside the matrimonial bed in the dark of 
night.

The cries of Wiggins' helpless employees sounded loudly 
in my ears as both of them capitulated into a futile 
slow dance of despair against the hands which molested 
them from all sides. As the camera was moved around the 
chair the Prussian appeared to give some orders. Angel 
and Chrissie's hats were removed and their tightly 
bunned hair unpinned in what seemed to be an oddly 
gentle way. Then, as the Mandarin and the Clown laid 
their wanton hands on the girl, the Prussian turned her 
head towards the  nearest sister and kissed her through 
the mouthpiece of the mask. 

Perhaps by then she was too bemused to know what was 
happening because she seemed to be responding to his 
kiss as if it were from a genuine lover instead of a 
loathsome lecher. Indeed, when he left her and the 
Mandarin pressed for the same display of affection she 
offered it with the same apparent eagerness, even with 
his hand still taking insufferable liberties inside her 
clothing.

Oh well, as good looking as they were, the sisters were 
in truth only hired guttersnipes and nothing better 
than abject surrender to brute force was to be expected 
from them. Miss Oakes, of course, was horrified at 
being forced to witness a scene rapidly descending into 
unbelievable depths of iniquity. For by now the thug 
wearing the African mask had left the camera man to 
continue his work unaided to join the molesters in 
their wicked pursuits. Three around Angel, three around 
Chrissie, stroking the girls underneath and outside 
their clothing, kissing them, running their fingers 
through the long tresses of blonde hair, nibbling on 
their ears and whispering a running stream of foulness 
into their ears.

Naturally, the effect was to bring on convulsions in 
the poor trapped females. Their bodies quivered as if 
in the final throes of malaria, they called out to 
their maker for relief, twisted and jerked against 
their restraints and finally slumped against the cross 
bars of the chair as the kidnappers laughed at the 
effects they had achieved. I only hoped that whatever 
damage they had caused to the girls would not be of a 
permanent nature. And then the Prussian stood behind 
Maude and removed her hat. As if this was a signal they 
had been waiting upon the rest of his followers 
abandoned Chrissie and Angel and began to press around 
their final victim like hyenas waiting their chance.

"Love all, Miss Watson," I heard the Prussian jeer.

Maude's face was brick red, her lips wide apart as she 
struggled for breath, her eyes almost rolling back in 
her head as the insolent young swine scratched her 
underneath one earlobe. His hand ran down her neck, 
underneath her arm, onto the magnificent swellings at 
the front of her dress and lingered there, gently 
squeezing Maude's body like a Caesar showing his 
mastery over a conquered Queen. I remembered her 
prophetic words about becoming a Roman triumph in an 
iron cage if she lost the final: well, she had not yet 
lost the final but it was clear she was in clear and 
present danger of losing all her other virtues.

The Prussian abandoned her upper torso, left those 
contours to other hands, and did for Maude as he had 
for the sisters, removing a pistol from its intimate 
hiding place. And having removed it his hand went back 
from whence it had came as all the other kidnappers 
crowded around him to caress whatever part of Maude's 
tethered body each of them could reach. Her head swayed 
from side to side as long drawn out cries issued from 
her mouth, and still the villains plied their 
wickedness on her. I took a half step towards the 
scene, then stopped, realising the futility of trying 
to do anything under the present circumstances. Indeed, 
and ashamed I am to confess it, but my body was 
reacting to the sight of Maude's distress in a way 
which would have revealed to even the most casual 
observer that I was not a waxwork dummy but a being of 
flesh and blood -- male flesh and blood.

As a doctor I had on occasion been queried by young 
gentleman whom had been bothered by the same problem of 
involuntary arousal when overly excited by proximity to 
female bodies. I had always firmly advised them that 
such bodily functions were simply a mere physiological 
whim which could be firmly dealt with by suitable 
mental discipline. However, as the gang continued their 
outrages upon Maude I confess that nothing I could do 
seemed to have any effect on my virility -- nor on my 
trembling legs and sweating brow.

Yes, I closed my eyes but all that achieved was to make 
the sounds I was hearing even more stimulating to that 
part of a man which seems eternally bound to the old 
Adam and original sin. And when Miss Oakes eventually 
gave out a series of shuddering cries of total despair 
my eyelids sprang open of their own accord: I saw her 
leaning against the chair, her features akin to that of 
a bather swept over a waterfall and now floating in 
some peaceful pool, astonished to find herself still 
alive.

Of course the villains were far from finished with her. 
But first they turned their attention to Angel and 
Chrissie again. Though this time it was to their 
clothing. The buttons on the backs of their dresses 
were undone, the gaps pulled open to reveal the laces 
on their corsets, the laces in turn unknotted and 
loosened. Then one of the sisters had her wrists freed, 
though her arms were still held tightly by the Clown 
and the Indian as the top of her dress was pulled down 
over her white -- and much freckled -- shoulders and 
then down her arms. 

Finally there was nothing but a pile of white linen 
around the girl's ankles which was in turn was quickly 
covered by a discarded camisole. Clad only in her 
bloomers and a loosened waist corset, the girl was 
dragged around to the front of the umpire's chair, 
where the Mandarin used the point of a rapier to prod 
her into climbing the ladder at the front. I noticed 
that a large pillow had been placed on the high chair, 
and on this the apprehensive girl sat, her feet at the 
same level as the shoulders of the watchers on the 
ground. Instantly the Pirate and the Clown swarmed up 
the side bars, each using their free hands to pluck at 
the waistband of her bloomers, the Prussian ascending 
several of the chair steps to help the pair of rogues 
in removing this last vestige of decent covering.

Another few seconds passed and the maiden on top of the 
chair was being made to hold herself still again as her 
portrait was recorded with not a stitch on her but the 
short corset, a garment which covered her only from the 
hips up to the loosened top. The rapscallions in the 
masks crowded around the chair like spectators at a 
gallows awaiting a public hanging. 

The Prussian moved up the ladder until his head was 
between the girl's thighs, where he lifted up the mask 
so that his face was uncovered but still hidden from 
view. The mask he then pushed so far back over his head 
that it was pointing straight up in the air. After 
which he pressed his head in as far as he could into 
the space before him as he appeared to kiss her private 
parts. I gasped in surprise, but nearly as much as the 
girl.

It's true of course that such perverse variations on 
the normal relationships between male and female are 
well known in the East; indeed, there are temples in 
India which openly display carvings depicting even more 
unnatural depravities, difficult as this may be for any 
civilised mind to accept. But that I should ever see 
such actions being performed in public in a London 
suburb was beyond my comprehension. Neither could I 
understand why the man behind the upside down face of 
the Prussian was taking so long in simply placing a 
kiss on a woman's body, no matter how intimate the 
place he was choosing to assault with his lips.

Perhaps, I conjectured, he was biting her and causing 
her pain, for she soon seemed to be in some distress. 
She was unable to sit still, she seemed distracted, her 
hands went down to his head, then lifted up and -- 
apparently unaware or uncaring of the other watching 
males -- she plucked her bosoms out of the top of the 
corset, nipping the tips of them between her fingers as 
if attempting to find some relief from her distress. 

The camera was tilted up and she was apparently ordered 
to stay still for several seconds with her hands 
clutching at her own soft flesh, an order she seemed to 
find as difficult to obey as a command to stop 
shivering whilst sitting on an ice floe. Then, as soon 
as the picture was taken her heels began drumming on 
the back of the Prussian in a kind of devil's dance. A 
dance that came to an end in a squeal from her throat 
as if she was a rabbit caught by a ferret as her body 
arched like a drawn bow string just before the arrow is 
loosed. Indeed, the girl seemed to release some kind of 
pent up energy within herself at the highest point of 
her squeal and, save for the head still between her 
opened legs, might have slipped forward out of the 
chair in a half faint.

I can hardly say the horror I felt at being forced to 
watch such indignities being performed on a helpless 
female. Yet there was some dark spell cast by this evil 
which still held my own body in its thrall, a sorcery I 
could not break, an excitement which had the blood 
pounding inside my head as the Prussian replaced his 
mask, stepped down from the chair and pointed to Maude 
as the next girl to be displayed aloft as a captured 
trophy. Indeed, as Maude was taken towards the chair I 
had terrible visions of my heightened blood pressure 
breaking a vein in my nose and letting a betraying 
streak of red fall across my face.

In quick succession three things happened, events for 
which I wasn't prepared. The first was that Angela or 
Chrissie, whichever it was who had been on the chair, 
stepped off the ladder at the bottom with a look of 
wild arousal still on her face and smiled at the 
Pirate, the Indian and the Clown as they closed around 
her with outstretched hands. The second thing was that 
Miss Oakes’s features seemed to hint at very much the 
same state of barely human passion as she was led 
forward by the Mandarin. 

Her clothing had not yet been interfered with, a state 
of affairs quickly altered as those of the gang amusing 
themselves with the newly descended girl abandoned her 
charms to encircle Maude. Only the Prussian stood aside 
with his arms folded as the other gang members stripped 
off Miss Oakes’s garments with no great apparent hurry 
and some care. Surrounded by such an overwhelming 
presence, both they and she knew that resistance could 
achieve nothing.

The knot of men appeared to move closer to the chair, 
then parted a little as the Prussian approached. 
Clearly he was the leader of this pack of fiends. But 
such was my agitation at the scene I glimpsed at that 
moment that all other thoughts were as nothing. For 
between the figures I saw that Maude was bent forward 
with her head thrust between two rungs of the chair's 
ladder and powerful hands pushing down on her back 
prevented any attempt to raise herself from that 
position. 

The result was that the fairest sports lady in the 
Kingdom was bent forward from the waist, helpless to 
move, her hands gripping the side of the chair, the 
empty holster hanging from the bottom of her waist 
corset, now rucked so far up that the holster was 
almost underneath her waist. And not only was her 
entire lower body completely uncovered, one of her 
magnificent bosoms had tumbled out of its bodice cup to 
be looked upon and thoroughly fondled. I saw another 
brazen hand move in to release the matching pillow of 
silk skin from the confines of Maude's corset, I saw 
her quiver and rise on tiptoe as other hands slapped 
against the curves of her bared buttocks.

Then the men closed around her again, blocking my view 
of what was happening, and again I took an involuntary 
step, before I came to my senses and stopped again -- 
and then realised I hadn't stepped towards Maude but 
sideways. Not with some wild hope of rescuing her, but 
only to reach a better vantage point where I could see 
more clearly what was being done to her and what was 
about to be done. And, again, it was the Prussian who 
was giving the orders as Maude's heart rending cries 
were swept aside by his strong voice

One his acolytes, the Mandarin, stepped around the 
chair with a rapier in his hand and slashed through the 
bonds holding the other sister in place. She lifted up 
her hands in front of her, pulled off the severed loops 
of cord and looked at the man with the  weapon. I 
couldn't see her expression but at a wave of the blade 
she went before him to stand at one side of Maude, 
facing across her back as her sister was summoned to 
meet her face to face. 

The men moved back a little as the recently released 
girl leaned forward over Maude so her sister could put 
her arms around her and undo the laces of her corset. 
Once the garment was loose the girl wearing it had 
bosoms gently lifted out over the top by her sister's 
hands, an act clearly well approved of by the audience. 
In the meanwhile the African and the Samuri were 
changing the camera plates as quickly as they could.

Again I heard Maude call out as her head was pulled 
back from the ladder, she was ordered to stand up and 
then turn around to confront her tormentors in her 
disrobed and disordered condition. With her hands 
hanging from her sides she made no attempt to cover 
herself, her eyes wide and rolling around her as if 
wondering in what direction and from which masked 
figure the next outrage against her person was to come 
from. 

Yet there were vices here which neither of us could 
have guessed at, for the Prussian spoke and Angel and 
Chrissie obeyed, no doubt convinced that they could not 
refuse even the vilest request put upon them. For both 
of them laid a hand on one of Maude's breasts and toyed 
with them in exactly the same way as the males had 
done.

I saw her magnificent figure lift itself on tiptoe in 
shock, truly like the very embodiment of a classical 
Goddess of Antiquity, and prepared myself to lift my 
stick and charge at the Prussian with the intention of 
dashing the leader's brains out. Until one of the 
blonde girls laughed and I also saw that Maude had put 
her arms around both of the sisters to return their 
caresses in kind. Now it was my turn to feel as if I'd 
been turned to stone, and frozen in position I remained 
as this extraordinary tryst continued. But even as the 
three girls were passionately pressing themselves 
against each other, even as they exchanged hot blooded 
kisses, the gang moved again to change the scene.

Angel and Chrissie were pushed aside and then Maude was 
lifted bodily from the grass, the Pirate and Mandarin 
with their arms underneath her back as she lay on them 
as if in a hammock, the nape of her neck pressed up 
against a rung on the ladder to keep her head raised 
high. The Clown and the Red Indian were also helping to 
support her weight, their palms underneath her bottom, 
the backs of her outstretched legs resting on each 
man's shoulders with the sides of her knees pressing 
against their necks. In such a position there could be 
no pretence of Miss Oakes retaining any shred of 
modesty. And certainly none to an onlooker standing 
only a few paces in front of her, as the Prussian was.

He laughed, pointed a finger at each hand at one of the 
sisters and crooked them in summons. Without a word 
being spoken the girls hurried to his side as if they 
were the slaves of some Eastern potentate. If he gave 
an order then I didn't hear it -- perhaps none was 
needed, for one of the sisters knelt to undo his shoe 
laces and the other to unbutton his shirt. Neither 
showed anything but cheerful eagerness in performing 
their task. 

Even he was stripped by the two beautiful girls the 
Prussian's gaze hardly ever strayed away from Maude's 
body as it continued to be held up for his inspection 
and delectation. Until his shirt and trousers were 
removed and thrown over the tennis net and then he 
glanced down. Down at the golden hair of the sister 
whom had knelt at his feet again to carry out an act of 
passion which no animal would perform. And when I saw 
the other hand maiden also kneeling down, to offer her 
opened mouth alongside that of her sister... not in 
India, not even in France had I believed such depravity 
to be capable of expression. And to do it in the open 
air, in full view of the other men.

What must be passing through Maude's mind at this 
spectacle I dared not imagine. Yet she was certainly 
not comatose with shock, as I expected, for she was 
wriggling and squirming on top of the arms and hands 
holding her. At first I thought this was because of the 
horror of the scene being enacted in front of her, and 
then I saw that the men with their hands under her 
buttocks were taking turns at touching the poor 
innocent girl in the most intimate place of all with 
their thumbs. No wonder she was gurgling deep in her 
throat and wriggling as violently as a broken backed 
snake. Where, oh where was Wiggins and his party 
rescuers?

A big blue horsefly began circling my head, then 
settled on my nose. One of the sisters engorged herself 
on the Prussian's organ, I twitched, and the other 
sister stood up and knelt down again, this time with 
her head between Maude's finely muscled thighs. A head 
which moved forward, apparently to perform the same 
service as the Prussian had performed for the girl on 
the ladder. Maude squealed, her arms were around the 
waists of the men supporting her back and her legs 
quivered against the necks of the clown and the Red 
Indian: quivered and shook as if she'd been struck by 
lightning. 

The fly began walking up my nose in a million tiny 
footsteps, the Prussian pulled up the girl from her 
position of service to his organ and stepped up to 
Maude with the other girl also standing up. Together 
the three of them stood in a group, looking down at 
Maude, the sisters hands clamped together, one in front 
of the other on the length of the Prussian's manhood as 
if he somehow needed some final encouragement before 
committing the ultimate outrage.

The fly crawled into a corner of my eye, I gripped my 
walking stick, the Prussian seized Maude's waist to 
cries of encouragement from his accomplices, the 
sisters performed their final act of betrayal against 
their fellow female by helping him to sheathe his sword 
in Maude's sheath and the Prussian bellowed in triumph 
as he ravaged the tennis champion of all England.

Still no sign of rescue, and too late now anyway to 
save poor Miss Oakes’s virtue. It was gone, plucked 
from her in the most shameful and disgusting manner 
conceivable. Inwardly, my trapped emotions seemed to be 
breaking loose with the uncontrollable force of a 
double charge of gunpowder within a gun barrel, my 
vision blurred, the horsefly touched one of my 
eyelashes, then flew away, Maude shrieked, my head 
seemed to be floating away from my body and I suddenly 
saw blades of grass very close to my face.

In fact I must have fainted. By and by my eyes opened, 
on a scene which I could not believe. The Prussian was 
seated on top of the umpire's chair, and Maude was on 
the ladder -- or, to be accurate, she was holding a 
ladder rung in one hand and both her outstretched feet 
were resting on the side supports. Sitting below her, 
between her opened legs, was a naked male with neither 
his face or mask visible to me as they were hidden 
behind Maude's loins. 

I could well see where both of his hands were though. 
Kneeling in front of the hidden male was one of the 
sisters, using her mouth to satisfy the ruffian's 
beastly desires. Underneath her opened thighs was the 
crushed mask of the Pirate and straddled on top of him 
was the last girl, her hands gripping her sister's 
shoulders as she fornicated wildly with the Pirate. 
Other members of the gang were idly watching all this -
- except for the Mandarin, who walked towards me with a 
small black bottle and a rag in his hand.

"Good match isn't it, Doctor? I think the best of three 
is the technical term. Pity you can't stay around to 
watch the double faults when we change ends."

He poured some fluid from the bottle onto the rag.

"What..." Even though I was still lying down and it was 
a useless gesture, I gripped my walking stick.

"Don't worry, Doctor Watson, it's only chloroform to 
put you back to sleep. But a word of advice before you 
nod off. Your face is clearly visible amongst the crowd 
in some of the plates we've already exposed. Not that 
we want to threaten you but if you were to continue 
this investigation in any way -- well, it could be very 
embarrassing for Doctor Watson as well as for Miss 
Oakes if those photographs were passed around. And, by 
jove, isn't our champion galloping along in fine 
style?"

I looked again at the disgusting scene on the chair and 
saw the pattern of muscles straining along the backs of 
Maude's legs as she twitched up and down like a kitten 
being teased with a spool of wool. This, I thought, was 
as complete a debasement of an innocent girl as ever 
been accomplished since Caligula reigned. Before any 
further coherent thought could be formed the rag was 
placed over my nose and mouth. No more did I know until 
another hour or more had passed and Wiggins was waking 
me up.

Of the masked men, of the girls, of Maude Watson, there 
was no sign. No dummies, no net, no chair. Even the 
clothes with the background scenery had gone, although 
the railway carriage still waited at the magazine 
loading platform. Waited, but empty and deserted. No 
sign of the passengers anywhere and Wiggins shocked to 
his very core when I gave him the barest inkling of how 
disastrously mislaid his plans had proved to be. Yet he 
was nowhere as grieved as I was. 

I took a cab straight back to Baker Street at ruinous 
expense, immediately went to bed and then found I 
couldn't sleep because of feelings of self disgust and 
crushing failure that have no place in this simple 
story. Let me simply record that in the small hours of 
the morning I was forced to administer a strong 
sleeping draught to myself and woke up at three o'clock 
the following afternoon when Sherlock Holmes walked 
into my bedroom and cast down a newspaper on my 
coverlet.

"Holmes! You're back."

"Watson, your powers of observation never cease to 
amaze me. Yes, my work in the Balkans is finished and 
the case of the Emperor's footsteps is closed."

I tried to wake myself up: "The case of the Emperor's 
footsteps? Are you talking about the Emperor of 
Austria?"

Holmes laughed and struck a match for his pipe: "No, 
Watson, nor yet the Kaiser's footsteps, or the Czar's. 
The Emperor that I followed down the shores of the 
Danube died two thousand years ago. Yet when I arrived 
back here at the crack of dawn from the boat train and 
begged an early breakfast from Mrs Hudson I learnt that 
you yourself seemed to have had a most interesting case 
dropped into your lap in my absence. Mrs Hudson didn't 
know what had brought Miss Oakes here but she knew it 
must be something important, especially when you 
summoned Wiggins with such despatch."

"Oh."

Once again the black bile of complete failure rose up 
in my gorge as the sweet oblivion of sleep dissipated.

"I found our good landlady's information somewhat 
interesting, Watson. My usual way with a case is to 
start at the beginning and work through to the end. But 
here I seemed to have two ends of a case and no middle. 
I knew that Miss Oakes had consulted you, and I could 
surmise that it had something to do with today's tennis 
final. So, before applying my mind to the mysterious 
middle part I decided to go to Wimbledon to see how 
Miss Oakes fared in her match."

I turned my face to the wall: "Then you must have had a 
wasted journey, Holmes," I said bitterly. "A walkover 
for Miss Cavangh because Miss Oakes was too indisposed 
to appear."

"On the contrary, Watson, Miss Oakes was not only 
present, she played the game of her life. A magnificent 
performance that absolutely blasted the American girl 
off the court. Your friend is now a national heroine."

"What, Holmes! What! Is that true or are you making fun 
of me?"

Holmes seemed startled, a most unusual response from 
him of all people: "I never make jokes, my dear friend, 
as well you know." He picked up the paper and passed it 
to me. "Here, read it for yourself in the late news 
column."

"But, but... Holmes, did you notice her racket? Maude's 
racket

"Miss Oakes's racket? I took no special account of it." 
He closed his eyes in thought for a moment. "Leather 
covered handle, white stitching, a great deal of wear 
and tear, the handmarks on the handle matching Miss 
Oakes's grip exactly. All I can therefore tell you is 
that her racket was one which has long been in the 
lady's possession and which she evidently uses a very 
great deal. Indeed, I suspect that it is the only 
racket that she has ever played with. Oh, and I noticed 
that the  maker's name was Mullard. Mullard and sons, 
to be precise."

"You took no special note of her racket yet you 
remember it in such great detail?" I protested.

The great detective shrugged: "I've told you many 
times, Watson, we both see. The difference is that you 
only see but I see and notice. Never mind, tell me why 
this matter of the lady's racket seems so important to 
you -- and why did you call in Wiggins?"

Totally bewildered, I explained what had happened, 
knowing full it was a story which reflected little 
credit on myself. As for what had happened in the old 
magazine store, it would have been almost impossible to 
repeat the details to any normal listener. Holmes, 
however, was not normal. Indeed, there were many times 
when I had felt that he was simply some kind of a 
superb reasoning machine concealed behind a mere facade 
of flesh and blood. In that spirit I enlightened him as 
to the details of the case without the embarrassment 
which I would have felt in laying the information 
before anyone else.

When I'd finished he put his meerschaum pipe on the 
mantelpiece to cool down and left the bedroom without a 
word, returning a few minutes later with one of his 
innumerable files. He opened and spread out a mass of 
photographs and drawings, each one displaying a view of 
one of the stately homes of England.

"There, Watson, there." He passed me one of the 
drawings. "Does that look familiar to you?"

Indeed it did -- it was a view I would never forget: 
"That's the mansion I saw on the scenery clothes,with 
the same observatory dome," I said. "What is that 
place? To whom does it belong?"

"That is Leavenworth Hall, the ancestral home of Lord 
Leavenworth, Watson. The most politically influential 
peer in the realm and the man who holds the reins of 
power in the internal affairs of the Liberal Party."

"My God!" I stared at him, thunderstruck. "So this is 
indeed all part of some nefarious foreign plot, 
Holmes!"

The great man shook his head, a faint smile on his 
lips: "No, Watson, hardly that. You see, I happen to 
know that young Wiggins has ambitions of standing for a 
seat in the House of Commons in the next election. 
Standing, furthermore, in the Liberal interest, which 
means that he must first be selected by that party to 
contest a seat."

"Wiggins!"

"Of course, Watson. Wiggins. He has contacts 
everywhere. Contacts enough to know that I had 
purchased boat train tickets and would thus be out of 
the country, and contacts enough to have Miss Oakes's 
racket stolen. No doubt he also arranged for the lady 
to be directed here from her hotel, knowing that in my 
absence you would almost certainly seek out his 
services."

Holmes shook his head ruefully: "I fear I may have 
created something of a Frankenstein in that young man. 
Still, there always was a spark of genius about him."

"But, but... Holmes, are you saying that Wiggins 
allowed Maude and those girls to be abducted?"

"My dear Watson, Wiggins was the abductor. He and his 
gang. No doubt he was the one wearing the Prussian 
mask. And, by the way, the two sisters you describe 
almost certainly weren't abducted. They knew exactly 
what was going to happen and merely served as Judas 
goats to help lead Miss Oakes into the trap."

I could hardly credit my ears: "Why would Wiggins do 
such a thing?"

Holmes smiled: "Exactly for the reason you surmised, 
Watson. For blackmail. Either Lord Leavenworth helps 
Wiggins to be pre-selected for a seat he has a good 
chance of winning or some very unsavoury pictures are 
likely to appear, photographs which appear to have been 
taken on the grounds of Leavenworth Hall."

"This is nonsense, pure nonsense, Holmes," I protested. 
"Whatever Lord Leavenworth might be induced to do and 
whatever his influence, it is impossible for me to 
believe that a reputable political party would offer to 
adopt somebody like Wiggins as one of its parliamentary 
candidates. He's a vulgar little upstart, a 
hobbledehoy, a man of no family whatsoever. Nobody has 
ever even heard of him. And, anyway, he's only a boy. 
The whole idea is absurd to the nth degree."

Holmes smiled, as if seeing a chemical reaction behave 
exactly as he had expected it to do so: "Once again, I 
urge you to read the latest news column in that 
newspaper."

Extremely puzzled by his words, I picked up the 
newspaper, read the column, and nearly suffered a 
stroke as I read it aloud: "After the match Miss Oakes 
announced her betrothal to Mr Harold Wiggins!"

"A nice touch, hey, Watson? Wiggins is a nobody no 
longer, instead he's affianced to one of the most 
beautiful and best known girls in the land. Under those 
circumstances and with Lord Leavenworth's ardent 
support, I'm sure he'll have no problem in being 
selected -- nor in winning a seat."

"But he's blackmailing her into marrying him, Holmes, 
blackmailing her with those photographs. It must be 
stopped."

"Hmmm..." Holmes stood up, removed his pipe from the 
mantelpiece and took out his tobacco pouch. "Well, 
Watson, it's true that whenever I've made a mistake in 
handling a case, it's almost always been because of my 
inability to understand the feminine psyche. Yet I was 
standing next to Miss Oakes when she made her nuptial 
announcement to a crowd of reporters and a gentleman 
from the Times. If she was not greatly excited and 
blissfully happy about the matter then she must be a 
far better actress even than she is an athlete. No, I 
don't believe she is being blackmailed at all."

"You were standing next to her? How was that possible."

"Wiggins invited me to be there. And to stand as best 
man for him at his wedding, so if his intended bride 
does change her mind I'll be in an excellent position 
to know about it. But I don't think she will."

"Best man? You've agreed to be his best man?" I was 
totally bewildered.

"His mother is dead, he never knew his father, I was 
the first adult to give him any kind of helping hand 
and he has followed in my footsteps. It's not 
unreasonable to regard myself as standing in loco 
parentis to the young man." Holmes struck a match, 
applied it to the pipe and spoke rather indistinctly 
around the mouthpiece as he drew on it. "Besides, 
Watson, in our latter years we may be very glad to 
claim acquaintanceship with a member of cabinet -- 
perhaps even Prime Minister Wiggins himself."

I was bewildered: "But after what I've told you, 
there's no question of allowing the marriage to 
proceed. Maude is being forced into going to the alter 
with the young thug."

"And, I repeat, I have seen no evidence of Miss Oakes 
being forced into doing anything. Wiggins certainly 
abducted her, her certainly ravished her, and he most 
certainly gave some experiences she would never 
otherwise have been exposed to -- if you'll pardon the 
phrase, Watson. Perhaps by the customs of our society 
she should have become distraught as a result -- yet 
the only female suffering from any degree of distress 
appears to be Miss Cavangh. 

As far as I can tell Miss Oakes appears to have 
thoroughly enjoyed the whole business and to have 
acquired a special pleasure from Wiggins' company -- 
his very close company, shall we say? If she wishes to 
continue to enjoy that company within the bonds of holy 
matrimony, than that is a matter purely between her and 
Wiggins. In matters of this kind there are urges which 
outsiders meddle in at their peril.”

"Urges? What kind of urges, Holmes?"

"Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary."

THE END

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Please keep this story, and all erotic stories out of
the hands of children. They should be outside playing
in the sunshine, not thinking about adult situations.

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