Flo pressed other snapshots into my hands and I was dimly aware of glancing at them, but when I looked up again she had gone back to her coffee and was sitting cross-legged on the bed, brushing her hair vigorously.

“I'm going to borrow this one, Flo,” I said.

“Ninety-three, ninety-four,” she chanted.

I put the others on top of the album that lay on the shelf and walked towards the door. Her hair-brush clattered to the floor as she jumped off the bed and came after me.

“No, you can't borrow anything if you don't tell me why you want it. Here, give it back.”

She made to grab it from me, but I held it out of her reach, looked straight into her eyes, and said, “Don't.”

She took a sharp step back, her eyes going wide and hurt at the force of my tone. “I'll return it,” I said, and walked out.

I heard her call my name as I went down the stairs, but I did not stop. Jeeves managed to get the door open before I could touch the handle, and I trotted down the steps, not in the least surprised to find Holmes seated on the wall beside the entrance gate, a slim book in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

He watched me come down the drive, and when I handed him the photograph, all he said was, “Her father?”

“And a woman, who may or may not be the half-sister he claims. She runs a cabaret in Paris; he's lived there since around 1908.”

“Very good,” he said. “Now we have a chance to lay hands on them.”

“If we're going to talk to the police, I think I ought to bathe first. I don't look like the most reputable individual.”

“Let us go by the house on the way to the hotel and see if Long and Hammett are still there.”

We set off walking, but on reaching the next street a taxi went past, slow and vacant. Holmes put up his hand and we climbed in, and he had the driver go past the house to fetch the other two men. Hammett came out with a bundle in his arms, wrapped in a torn piece of dust-cloth. When he settled in, he said, “I didn't know that you'd want to leave this in the house. If you don't want to trust the hotel safe, I can recommend a nice discreet bank for you.”

On the way, Holmes asked the driver to stop at a photographic shop around the corner from the St Francis.

“You don't think we should give the photograph to the police?” I asked him.

“I'd prefer to have a copy of our own first.”

“Or perhaps a number of copies,” I said.

“Quite.”