Looking around, she seized upon a life-size plaster head of Goethe and hurled it at my friend, who leaped from his chair just in time to miss being concussed by the philosopher.

Goethe bounced off the chair and landed on a small Moroccan table, upending it, and sending a teacup and some books crashing to the floor to join in the general chaos there. The bust splintered into several pieces.

Given the state of disarray, this hardly worsened the room.

‘Pagan! Reprobate! Liar! Thief!’ she shouted, then lunged at him. I caught her mid-stride, grasping her by both arms. She appeared dainty but was muscled like an athlete.

‘Madame, please sit down,’ I said. ‘You are clearly distraught. Let us help you.’

‘Distraught! Help me?’ Her voice rose to a shout. ‘This man, he misrepresents himself. Says he is a scientist. But then I read in the newspaper he is famous detective. I ask Scotland Yard, one man there say amateur only.’

I laughed.

She turned to me. ‘But … what do you say? He is pastry chef? He is ironmonger? And who are you?’

‘I am Doctor John Watson, this man’s friend. Yes, he is a detective and a scientist. Please … calm down, dear lady.’

She took a deep breath and stopped struggling. I removed my hands from her arms. ‘Forgive me, Madame. May I pour you a brandy?’ I asked. ‘Please, do sit down.’

She ignored this and turned to Holmes.

‘The Great Borelli, he knows. Dario mio, he finds these pages missing, and he knows. Look!’

She undid a button at the cuff of her dress and rolled up the sleeve. A series of bruises was evident.

Holmes was instantly at her side. He gently took her arm and examined the injury. ‘Oh, Madame,’ he said. ‘I would never have – oh, not for the world—’

‘Let me have a look, would you?’ I brushed him aside. ‘I am a doctor.’

Mollified by the caring attention of two men, the woman seemed to calm herself into some semblance of normality as she let me examine her bruises.

‘It looks like someone grasped you hard enough to leave these marks,’ I said.

‘I never should give you the pages, Mr Holmes,’ said the lady.

She looked around her and took in the utter chaos that was our sitting-room. As she did so, a frown passed over her lovely features. Her skin was pale olive, her hair nearly black but burnished with red. She was indeed a fiery beauty.

‘And you lie to me,’ she said. ‘You told me you are scientist. I see no science, but only big mess.’

Her eyes fell on Holmes’s chemistry table.

‘Ah, science, yes, over there. But that is not the escape science, that is chemistry. No, it is physics! Who are you, Mr Holmes? You lied to me!’