As I flipped through the pages, a review of ‘The Great Borelli’s First London Appearance’ caught my eye. The magician was appearing at Wilton’s Music Hall. A lurid picture had the handsome, moustachioed Italian performer hanging from a similar contraption, but with many straps and padlocks all around, and a beautiful lady standing in attendance.

I heard a groan from across the room but ignored it.

‘This Borelli fellow has received an excellent review in The Times today. “Spectacular! Supernatural? How does he do it?”’ I read aloud. I tapped the advertisement. ‘Of course, Holmes, he is hanging upside down.’

‘That is the next phase.’

‘And there is a beautiful assistant standing by. I wonder what her role is?’

‘That is not his assistant. It is his wife,’ said Holmes, slightly out of breath. ‘And she designed the trick.’

‘Lucky man,’ I said.

A pause.

‘This is a bit more difficult than I had imagined,’ he murmured.

‘Try harder,’ I said and returned to my paper. Utterly mad. If I had not been there, the room might have caught on fire and all my things would have burnt up. And oh, yes, Holmes would be dead. I wondered if I could entice Mrs Hudson to bring me a lemonade.

‘Watson, be a good fellow. Go over to the table and read me what’s in those pages spread open. Step three, if you would.’

‘I already was a good fellow and righted the chair. You didn’t like it.’

‘Watson!’

I complied none too graciously. On the table were three pages, spread open, typed with a faulty typewriter in uneven lettering, in Italian, with some diagrams and an awkward English translation pencilled in. ‘Step three,’ I read aloud. ‘The left hand unlocks the lock which control the sleeve of the right. Take pick and release, then with other arm which out the shoolder – “shoulder” is spelled wrong – with three fingers, find the fold where are hidden the ties—’

There was a faint metallic clatter. I looked over to see that Holmes had dropped something small onto the polished wood floor.

‘I dropped my lockpick. Hand me that, would you?’ said he.

‘What would you do if I were not here?’

‘But you are here. Hurry, now!’

‘No.’

I was being obstreperous, but a man can take only so much. Instead of retrieving his lockpick, I pocketed it, then picked up the chair and placed it under him again. He could give up this foolish nonsense and step down from there as a sane person might. I sat back in my old easy-chair and once again took up the newspaper. Silence.

He kicked the chair away and struggled on. A few minutes later, his face had grown redder and the struggling more pronounced.

‘You had no idea I would be returning,’ I said. ‘What was your plan, anyway, Holmes? It is clear that Mrs Hudson has given up on this room, the mess you’ve made! And that fire!’