“Save that it was opium that killed O’Hara, not alcohol, the rest is correct.”

“As I remember it, when the boy was twelve or thirteen he finally came to the attention of the authorities, particularly the man who was in charge of the spy network operating along the Northwest Frontier. That was Creighton. He sent the boy to school for a while to learn his letters and numbers, before reclaiming him for the Intelligence service. Kim and some other agents foiled a Russian plot, something about treason among a group of hill rajas, and that’s where the book ends.”

“It was immediately after that tale’s conclusion that I met him. He was only seventeen, but already a full operative of the Survey. He had befriended an old Tibetan lama, and was returning him to his home when our paths coincided, and I joined them.”

“You mean you actually got to Tibet? I assumed that was one of Conan Doyle’s romanticisms. Wasn’t Tibet closed to outsiders until Younghusband’s expedition in, what was it, 1904?”

“That set off in the final weeks of 1903, and yes, all that time Tibet was closed tighter than a miser’s purse-string,” he said with satisfaction. “Which is why I needed to accompany the lama.”

“And you wanted to go to Tibet because . . . ?”

“Mycroft, of course.”

“Of course,” I muttered.

“This was 1892, when the Russian threat was at its height. The Tsar wanted India, the Viceroy wanted to know which pass the Cossacks would come pouring through, and I happened to be on hand. As was young Kimball O’Hara. I had joined with a group of explorers, calling myself Sigerson, and made a lot of careful notes and maps. O’Hara came to our camp one black night, begging food for his lama, this grubby dark-skinned lad with eyes that saw everything. As he was leaving, he allowed his shirt to fall open and reveal a certain charm around his neck which, combined with an exchange of phrases, told me that he, too, was engaged in the ‘Great Game’ of border espionage. He crept back to my tent at midnight and we had a long talk, and ended up travelling together for a time. Most of what we did is no doubt still under lock and key in some ministry office, but after the Bolshevik revolution, I had assumed that the need for guarding India’s passes had faded. However, it would seem that in Mycroft’s eyes, The Game persists, albeit against different players.”

He made to leave the room, but I had to protest, for his tale had been in no way adequate.

“But what was he like?” I persisted.