The diminutive surgeon looked down at me over a pair of silver reading glasses. His round face and sharp brown eyes brought to mind a small bear. I noted a carefully groomed and waxed moustache, with the ends precisely turned up in matching curls. Meticulous was precisely the trait one would wish for in a surgeon.

‘Awake, are ye? You’re a doctor, then, tae be askin’ about that?’ said the surgeon. A Highland accent. Scottish medical training, another good sign. ‘Missed the artery. You were lucky.’

‘Yes. Watson here was an army surgeon,’ said Holmes. ‘How soon can you have him on his feet, Doctor?’

‘Macready is the name,’ the surgeon said pleasantly to me. He then looked up at Holmes, who loomed nearby. He frowned. ‘Stand back, sir, you are dreadfully underfoot.’

Holmes was taken aback at a phrase I’d heard him rudely bark at our own dear Mrs Hudson, but he complied, disappearing from my view.

‘What is the extent of the wound, Doctor?’ I asked.

‘Mr Eden-Summers brought you to the right place. Arrow wounds are my speciality. Get little call for it, now. Arrow missed the femoral by less than an inch. As I said, you were very, very lucky.’

Holmes’s voice floated over as he held up the bloody arrowhead so that I could see it. ‘Hmm, bodkin point! Small favours, Watson.’

‘Indeed. I used one of my smallest tubes to retract it with minimal damage,’ said Macready. ‘You’ll appreciate that, Doctor Watson.’

‘Not as bad as a broadhead, though. You are lucky, my friend,’ continued Holmes. ‘Bodkins have much smaller ears.’ At my puzzled look, he added. ‘Shoulders. Barbs. The parts that tear the flesh when pulled out.’

Macready looked up from his work. ‘Get back from there!’ Holmes disappeared again. ‘You are an archer, then?’

‘Formerly,’ said Holmes.

‘Hit the adductor longus?’ I asked.

‘Yes. It could have been much worse,’ said Macready.

‘Meaning what?’ asked Holmes.

‘It means he should pass on any Morris dancing for the immediate future,’ said the surgeon. ‘That muscle moves the leg from side to side.’

‘How soon for normal walking, Doctor?’ asked Holmes.

‘And what is your hurry in that?’ replied Dr Macready, coldly. ‘Stand further back, over there, would you? What is your relationship to this man, might I ask?’

‘I am Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, here in Cambridge on a case. This is my friend and colleague Dr John Watson.’

‘Yes, yes, army surgeon, you said. How does a medical colleague help a detective?’ When neither of us answered, he looked down at me. ‘Now … think of something else while I sew this up.’

‘Aaah!’ I distracted myself with Holmes’s exploits. ‘Eh … so … how did you get out of gaol, Holmes?’