However, there is a drawback to allowing Holmes to involve himself in a project, particularly when he is bored to begin with—for example, following a long and tedious ocean crossing: The machinery of his mind cannot bear to run without engaging, so that he tends to adopt hobbyhorses.

Even before my emotional collapse on Friday, the minor conundra surrounding the house and the death of my parents had shown every sign of becoming his latest project, into which he had thrown himself with all the intensity that he would have given to a crucial case of international relations. There was no point whatsoever in telling him that the mystery of the house-breaking was of less import to me than the eternal mystery of why a woman cannot buy a pair of shoes that fit: His teeth had seized the bit, and he would run with his chosen investigation until it was either solved or had reached an insoluble dead-end.

It was, at times, trying, to live with a man constitutionally incapable of relaxation. Despite the emptiness within, I was more than a little relieved to get away from him for a couple of days.

Then it occurred to me, a mile or so south of where we had met the insurance man, that my embarrassing display of weakness on Friday might possibly have unexpected benefits, in setting Holmes another problem at which to worry. Dr Ginzberg's nine-year-old murder might not be of a complexity worthy of Holmes' efforts, but it was a case I would like to see solved, if he could do so in the few days left to us here. And if it turned his attentions away from the pointless and uncomfortable mysteries of the house and my past, so much the better. He hadn't seemed terribly interested in it this morning, headed to the ferry on one of his odd scholarly pursuits, but in any event, it would be difficult to ferret out any official sources of information before Monday.

I smiled: Sundays were often a vexation of spirit to Holmes.

My companion in the front seat must have been keeping a surreptitious eye on me and seen a degree of relaxation on my features, because my distant thoughts were interrupted by a solicitous question directed at me.

“Feeling a bit warmer, Mary?”

“Sorry? Oh, yes, I'm fine. It's very beautiful, isn't it?”

Satisfied, either with my answer or that I could make one, Flo gave me a smile meant to be encouraging and left me to my thoughts.

Watching the back of her glossy black hair dancing in the breeze, I realised that I liked her, and her friends, more than I had expected.