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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."