‘Wyndham must have been in a hurry. Everything has been moved,’ I said.

‘Or angry, yes.’ He paused, then his face lit up. ‘Everything except this.’

He pointed to an innocuous painting, an unimpressive seascape on the wall opposite the sofa, hanging next to the door. In contrast to the disarray of the rest of the room, it hung straight and undisturbed.

Holmes took down the painting and examined the back. ‘Watson, we are in luck!’ he cried.

He removed an envelope that was fastened to the frame. Eagerly he opened it. ‘Pawnshop receipts!’ he said, flipping through them. ‘Her father was right! But she managed to keep it a secret from him, even after death. Watson, Dillie had been pawning off her mother’s – or someone’s – jewellery.’ He paused and looked up. ‘Saving, no doubt, for this moment.’

‘To do what?’

‘To buy her freedom. I would be willing to wager that Miss Wyndham pawned her two engagement rings just before she was killed. Or perhaps was on her way to do so. And this would explain why she accepted rings from both Eden-Summers and Leo Vitale.’

‘Then she did not intend to marry either.’

‘I would theorize not.’

‘Could there have been a third person with whom she planned to leave? Like Madame Borelli and her scientist fellow?’

One of the low stools we had sat on near the door to put Dillie at her ease had been upended. Holmes turned it upright and sat down, the receipts in his hand. He closed his eyes. ‘I need to think.’

The room was nearly dark. I found a sconce and lit it, and the room was immediately bathed in a warm light.

‘What pawnshop?’ I asked.

‘Piotr Flan. Here is the address.’ He handed me the receipts. As I moved towards the light to look at them, the door flew open and to our surprise in burst Freddie Eden-Summers. He took us both in and frowned in confusion.

‘What are you two doing here?’

‘My question for you, Mr Eden-Summers,’ said Holmes, on his feet.

‘This was Dillie’s private room,’ said Eden-Summers.

‘Yes, but no longer. Have you come to retrieve something? A ring perhaps?’ said Holmes.

The boy stammered, backed up. ‘Well, I thought perhaps …’

I held up the golden circle ring and stepped forward. ‘This one, by chance?’

Freddie Eden-Summers squinted at the ring from across the room. ‘Oh, that one. I gave her that a month ago. My Woodman ring. I was hoping for the engagement ring. But give it to me—’

The young man stepped towards me into the glow of the lamplight near me on the wall. The next moment has been frozen in my memory, with the movements slowed, bathed in greenish-golden light, as though underwater.

The soft gaslight illuminated Eden-Summers’ pale, handsome face, and I noticed the blond peach fuzz which covered his cheeks and the straw colour of his eyelashes. The ring in my hand gleamed.