Dr Watson, looking dapper in black dinner suit and white tie, was still reeling from the sight of Colonel Sebastian Moran in the flesh when he joined the Countess in her luxurious suite. She was pulling on some black silk evening gloves. Ah, the glamour of gloves – a lady’s ensemble was never complete without gloves. “Where are those photographs?” he said without preamble. “I’ve laid them out on the couvre-lit. Ali Pasha, the antiquities trader, is the man wearing the green fez. Professor Max Mallisham is the other one.” “I wonder what he was talking to Moran about.” “Whatever it was the colonel didn’t look too happy.” “Colonel Moran is a dangerous man – never lose sight of that fact,” he warned. “You might recall he tried to kill Sherlock with an air rifle. His presence puts a completely new light on this assignment. That was a huge oversight on Mycroft’s part, to omit a photograph of the colonel. I wonder if he did it deliberately, knowing how much it would rattle me.”
