After wandering the halls briefly, we were directed to the physics lab. There we found ourselves in a long, narrow room facing an array of strange glass tubes, electrical equipment, wires, and beakers of chemicals. A much larger version of the strange device in our sitting-room that Holmes had called a ‘Ruhmkorff Coil’ stood on a table near the door. Long stone counters ran the length of the room.

A lone young man sat at the far end of the room, poring over a single sheet of paper, his head in his hands, concentrating in a manner that looked as if he could burn a hole in the page. He was so thin and pale that he made Holmes look positively blooming in comparison. Dark reddish-brown hair, worn unfashionably long, flopped over his forehead.

‘Mr Vitale?’ said Holmes as we approached him.

The boy looked up as though surprised by a human presence. Perhaps twenty or twenty-two, Leo Vitale had a handsome but serious young face, with high cheekbones and piercing green eyes, magnified slightly by a pair of round silver spectacles. A ‘surprised baby owl’, Atalanta Wyndham had called him.

He was rather a good-looking fellow but appeared to have a mind in the clouds.

‘Why is the sky blue?’ he asked, dreamily.

‘What? Why is the rain wet?’ I exclaimed, already annoyed at this second overprivileged youth. What would England come to with these debauched characters cluttering up our finest institutions?

The boy looked at me blankly.

‘It is a physics problem, Watson.’ Holmes turned to the boy. ‘Rayleigh scattering,’ he said. ‘The sunlight bouncing off the molecules of the atmosphere.’

The young man blinked and seemed to arrive back on earth. A shy smile, followed by ‘Yes, you have it, sir. But Mr Fortuny will be in later. I am busy now.’ He turned away from us and picked up a long, delicate glass tube in the shape of a corkscrew.

‘Ah, Cosimo Fortuny, I know of him!’ said Holmes. ‘And I would love to chat with him about artificial lightning. A storm in a glass tube. But we are here to see you, Mr Vitale.’

No reaction. Vitale continued to busy himself with the glass tubing before him.

‘Young man, I am here in regard to Miss Odelia Wyndham.’

The fellow started, dropping the glass tube which shattered on the counter.

‘Careful, I would imagine those Geissler tubes are not easy to come by.’

‘Who are you?’ asked the boy, his voice barely a whisper.

‘I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is Dr John Watson.’

I was tempted to add ‘florist’ but restrained the impulse.

Leo Vitale regarded us with a remarkably flat, contained expression. I wondered if he masked himself in this manner consciously or truly was feeling next to nothing.

‘Mr Vitale, if we could go somewhere to discuss—?’ began Holmes.