There is a nearly hypnotic rhythm to a session of juggling, where the world narrows down to the other’s hands, when sight and sound merge into an almost psychic anticipation of one’s partner’s moves. It would have been a pleasurable interlude, had the temperature been on the melting side of freezing, since we had no audience to speak of. The occasional passer-by paused for thirty seconds before the cold urged him on, and two infants of five or six squatted in the drifted snow for far too long, their teeth chattering and their brown skin going an alarming shade of blue before an older sister appeared to chase them inside. My own fingers were turning white, rather than blue, and I did not know how much longer they would respond to their brain’s instructions to open and close.

We had been working the corner for nearly forty minutes before Holmes straightened marginally; when I shot a glance up the Mall, I saw a man, strolling unconcernedly, glancing into shop windows. He went inside one, coming out a few minutes later with a rolled newspaper under his arm. He greeted a man walking briskly up the hill, tipped his hat at a pair of well-wrapped ladies getting into a two-horse tonga, and took a very long time to descend the length of Simla’s social centre. Finally he paused to watch our increasingly clumsy game of catch.

It was none other than Geoffrey Nesbit. He ran his eyes over Holmes, identifying him, before studying me. I thought there was a little smile resting along the corner of his mouth, although I kept my eyes on Holmes’ hands.

“That is quite clever,” he said in Hindi. Somehow, I didn’t think he was talking entirely about the juggling.

“Thank you, sahib,” Holmes replied, in the same tongue.

“In fact, I think I might be able to steer you towards a bit of work. Children’s parties and the like.”

“Oh, sir, we can do many tricks.”

The smaller man stifled a laugh, and said merely, “I don’t doubt that.”

“And we go where we are told,” I added. The fluency of my phrase snapped his attention back onto me. He opened his mouth, but I was not to hear his words, for behind his shoulder, coming from the warren of side-streets that lay beneath the Mall, three figures were approaching. One brief glance, and I caught and placed the balls, one-two-three-four-five, on the trampled snow between my feet before turning my back on Holmes and saying in a low voice, “I’ll see you later.” I took three rapid steps and ducked into the next alleyway.