This is ridiculous – I shouldn’t be here. Yet, since I am here, I have to check. I brace myself to run if I need to, but take another step towards the door.

There’s a loud click! and a clunk! from downstairs. It’s the sound of the front door being unlocked and opened, followed by the noise of large booted feet stamping off snow.

“Come in, my old friends!” comes a voice I know too well, and I hear two other sets of feet enter the house. “It’s a long time since I welcomed you here.”

Sebastian Eels is home!

A STUDY IN VIOLET

I PUSH MY WAY INTO THE ROOM where I heard the rustling, and swing the door silently closed behind me, leaving it open just a sliver.

“Herbie!” Violet looks up from a pile of papers on a desk, astonishment on her face. “Herbie, what are you doing here?”

I give her a look. I could ask her the same question!

The book-lined room is clearly a study. The large desk fills the window, covered in an old map of the town and harbour, with arrows and marks drawn all over it. Beside the desk is a plan chest, several of its drawers open, and near by are boxes of paper notes and charts, many of them scattered over the floor, along with an empty bottle of whisky.

“Did you make all this mess?” I whisper.

“No! Do you think I drink whisky?”

I silence her with my hand, and listen out through the door. There is the hum of conversation downstairs, but I can’t make the voices out now. It sounds like Eels and his visitors have gone into another room.

“How did you know I’d be here?” Violet demands.

“No, Violet,” I say. “I think the question we should be asking is, how did you know where Sebastian Eels lives?”

“What…?” says Violet, looking suddenly flustered. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” I say, letting my eyes narrow, “that I don’t remember telling you where he lives. And yet here you are, looking pretty cosy up in his study.”

Violet opens her mouth then closes it again.

“No clever answer?” I say, my mind full of the things Lady K said to me, which suddenly don’t seem so crazy. “That’s not like you. Is there something you’re not telling me, Violet?”

“No, of course not.” Violet looks confused. Or is that more of a guilty expression?

“So,” I say, “how did you know Sebastian Eels’ address?”

“I-I just found out, that’s all.”

“Really?” I give her my archest eyebrow.

“It doesn’t matter.” Violet waves the eyebrow away. “What matters right now is how we are going to get away now that Eels has come back.”

And she tiptoes to the door and slips out, completely sidestepping my question. Something, I realize, that she’s very good at.