Without taking overly much professional credit, I found my practice particularly quiet in the run up to the Christmas of 18xx as my patients had maintained good health despite the onset of winter. I was therefore thankful to receive a note from my friend Sherlock Holmes one afternoon suggesting I meet him at a charitable society event being held at one of the European embassies that evening to mark the festive season. It struck me as an unlikely event to attract my friend's patronage but a partial explanation came in the final line:
'be sure to bring a warm overcoat and your trusty revolver. SH'
My friend was obviously involved in a new investigation and I was, again, to play a part. So it was with excitement and anticipation that I straightened my surgery away for the afternoon and rushed home to explain to my long suffering and ever-patient wife that I would not be at home for the evening and hunt out the pistol that had accompanied me on most of my adventures with Holmes.
Holmes arrived in a Hansom promptly and, as he had retained the cab for the night we were able to leave our heavier coats, with my revolver secreted among them, in the cab while we circulated amongst middle-ranking politicians, ambassadors from the smaller European nations and the usual society faces that grace any occasion where the food and drink is acceptable and, more importantly, freely available. It was exactly the sort of occasion that Holmes would do anything to avoid in the normal run of things but, since sharing his adventures, I could recognise the signs that he was on the scent of some intrigue or another and his alert eyes scanned the room above the rim of a champagne flute which, although raised to his lips, had surrendered little of its contents to his mouth. He dismissed attempts at conversation as quickly as possible, not always as politely as he could have done either, and passed most of his would-be interviewers on to me.
'I think you will find that Dr Watson here will furnish you with a much more exciting account of that episode than I could manage,' he would say, 'given as he is to making his reports a touch more colourful than they might be.'
And so it was that my conversational skills were under constant test, allowing my friend to continue his surveillance of the party.
I had conversed with one ambassador, three ambassador's wives, a Tory member of parliament for a small county seat and a number of over-indulged socialites when Holmes reappeared from one of the other dining rooms and, brushing aside yet another request for conversation with a minor European royal with the respect due to the station, motioned me to follow him with some urgency. When we were safely out of earshot of the merry-makers he turned to me:
'The game is afoot Watson, the prey has been flushed and we must move now to keep up. When we get to the Hansom change into your heavier coat and check that pistol of yours.'
We trotted down the front steps of the embassy to find our Hansom waiting for us.
'The carriage you asked me to watch has just left Mr 'Olmes,' said the cabbie as we approached.
'Follow it Jeffers, if you please, but stay back, don't let them know we are following.'
'Righty ho Sir, I know the drill.'
We ducked inside the hansom, Jeffers cracked his whip above the horse and we pulled away into the night. As we shrugged out of our dinner jackets and into our trench coats Holmes handed me a silken bandanna for my face and a shuttered lantern.
'We may have to bend the law a little tonight Watson, just a little, but I have been trying to pin down the quarry we are following tonight for some time. The man we are following is possibly the most wanted man in London and yet no-one who knows his name or his face will say who he is. Now, if you will, you will prove your indispensability to me once more by letting me think through our actions as we travel.'
And with that he steepled his hands in front of his long nose and drifted off into the mental sphere as I kept my peace beside him.
Within half an hour Jeffers rapped on the roof of the Hansom and pulled up the horse. The carriage which we had been following, an enclosed four-wheeler, had paused by the entrance to a gravelled driveway. A man in a top hat and a cape with a large turned up collar had alighted and then the carriage had turned into the driveway, which serviced a middle-sized detached townhouse in an affluent part of town. The man slipped through into the shadows of the garden after the carriage. Jeffers pulled our Hansom up outside the neighbouring house.
'Come Watson, an expeditious approach over the neighbour's wall may be as well, it would not do to be seen by the staff.'
I followed Holmes and, when we got to the wall, gave him a leg up, receiving a hand over the wall from him in return. We then moved through the shadows ourselves, the silken face-scarves covering our faces until we were crouched in the bushes at the rear of the house watching the caped man crouching at a set of French windows which led into what appeared to be a large sitting room.
'Are we to avert a burglary Holmes?' I whispered, placing my hand on the butt of my pistol.
'No, Watson, we are, I believe, to observe an invasion of an entirely different type.'