Holmes paused, alert. ‘Hold on, Watson.’ He turned back to the girl. ‘Them? Plural? More than one ring?’

‘Yes. Rings from both her fellas.’

There was a silence as Holmes took this in.

‘Polly, we read of the engagement to Freddie Eden-Summers. Do you mean she accepted tokens from more than one young gentleman? She was betrothed to more than one man?’

‘Yes. Two of them.’

‘Who was the second?’

‘Leo Vitale.’

‘The physics student? That tall, rather pale fellow in the Cavendish Laboratory?’ I said incredulously.

‘Yes, that’s him,’ said the girl. ‘Her folks don’t know about that one.’

Holmes smiled. ‘Ah. Now that is something! I smell a plan of sorts. A rather daring one. Did you happen to see both rings, Polly?’

‘I did.’

‘Can you describe them?’

‘Holmes, what on earth? The girl is surely more important than the rings?’

‘Polly?’

‘Both of ’em were old. I think the mother’s or the grandmother’s. Freddie’s ring, it was huge. The diamonds, well, they were large and several of ’em. Some emeralds on it, too. He had it cleaned afore he give it her, and it was sparkling something fierce. A beauty.’

‘And the other?’

‘’Tweren’t quite so dear, maybe, but very nice. Smaller, but very pretty, with sapphires and two little diamonds.’

‘Costly rings, then?’

‘Far as I know, sir. Looked like it to me. She were right pleased with them.’

‘The rings, I presume, rather than the young gentlemen?’

Polly ventured a tiny smile. ‘The rings. She don’t talk to me so much about the gentlemen.’

Holmes leaned closer to the lady’s maid.

‘Polly, is it possible that your mistress decided to run away? I mean, permanently? Perhaps to start a new life away from her family. Because the rings might … buy her passage, so to speak.’

Polly’s eyes filled with tears.

‘Do you understand what I am asking?’

The girl nodded.

‘But …?’ Holmes prompted.

‘But she … she would take me with her. She promised to take me.’

‘She is good to you, then, Polly?’

The girl nodded. ‘Yes, sir. She’s a good lady, Miss Odelia. When she gets her way.’

Just then the doorbell sounded, followed by a frantic knocking. There were thunderous footsteps on the stairs and in rushed young Hamilton, a newly minted police detective and Lestrade’s favourite, whom we had met on the Portsmouth strangler case the year before. The tall, gangly fellow stood before us, pale and sweating, with a look of horror on his face. ‘Come quick, Mr Holmes. There’s been a terrible death. A man burnt alive!’

‘Who?’

‘The Great Borelli!’ he cried. ‘At Wilton’s. Oh, my God—’

Holmes looked up in surprise. ‘Borelli? But he is laid up with a broken ankle.’

‘He went onstage anyway. He was roasted alive in a copper cauldron set over flames. The audience could hear the screams. They—’

‘How long ago?’

‘Less than an hour, sir.’

‘And Madame Borelli?’