“Over lunch, he explained to me that although he and my mother had seen little of each other in the last thirty years, they had always stayed in touch, if only by one letter a year, as she was, so far as he was aware, his only relative, and he hers. We chatted a little about family matters, and I must say I found him a very pleasant and thoughtful gentleman. Of course, I had no desire to bore him with the details of my own miserable financial situation, but somehow it came out, at which he looked most concerned.

“‘If you wish, Miss Calloway,’ said he, ‘you can stay with me for a few weeks, until you get on your feet again.’

“Of course, I responded that I could not possibly impose myself upon him, but he insisted that it would be no trouble to put me up, and that it was the least he could do for my mother’s memory. In the end, common sense won the day over pride and politeness, and I moved into his house, Bluebell Cottage, in Stagg’s Lane, near Beckenham, two days before Christmas last year.

“It is an interesting old house, somewhat larger than the name ‘cottage’ would suggest, and full of odd corners, narrow corridors and crooked stairways. It has a small garden at the front, and a much larger one at the back, which extends some way into a dense wood, where Professor Palfreyman sometimes likes to walk, or sit and smoke his pipe. He had been Professor of Classical Archaeology at London University, and when he retired he had chosen Bluebell Cottage because of its remote, secluded situation, so that he could work on a number of books he had planned to write without being disturbed. Stagg’s Lane itself is little more than a cart track, a byway off another byway called Aylmer’s Lane.

“Remote and secluded it may generally have been, but it could also, on occasion, be very lively, for Professor Palfreyman’s former colleagues would sometimes call in to see him to discuss academic matters, and I must say I found their visits immensely stimulating. Among these visitors was Professor Ainscow, who had succeeded Professor Palfreyman to the chair of Classical Archaeology. He is a large, jovial man, whose habitually dishevelled appearance belies a keen intellect and ready sense of humour. Not all the visitors were quite so entertaining, however. Dr Webb, who had once been a rival of Professor Palfreyman’s for the chair, is somewhat irritable and short in manner, and tends to stick tightly to his subject and avoid all other matters. I have had the impression once or twice that despite the evident respect he has for Professor Palfreyman’s professional opinions, he still bears his old rival a grudge for having beaten him to the chair many years ago. Dr Webb was accompanied on one or two occasions by his son, Paul, who is, if anything, even less agreeable than his father. While Dr Webb was in discussion with Professor Palfreyman, his son appeared to think that my presence in the house was entirely for his benefit, both mentally and physically, and he was unpleasantly overfamiliar in his manner. Mercifully, I have seen nothing of him in the last few months.

“One Saturday in the spring, Professor Ainscow arrived for lunch with a young man by the name of Timothy Martin, whom he introduced with a chuckle as his ‘latest recruit’. Mr Martin, he explained, had come down from Oxford the previous summer, having studied Classics and the History of Art, and was now doing research for his thesis in the department of Classical Archaeology.”

There was some slight alteration in the tone of Miss Calloway’s voice as she mentioned this young man, and Holmes evidently noticed it, too, for he opened his eyes for a moment.

“This young man is more agreeable than the other one you mentioned?” said he.

“I suppose he is,” returned Miss Calloway, looking slightly flustered. “Anyway, to return to my account: the first few weeks at Bluebell Cottage seemed to pass very quickly, and all my efforts to obtain a suitable position of employment for myself came to nought, as did my attempts to resume my studies. By then, the little money I’d had left after I had sorted out my mother’s affairs had dwindled practically to nothing. I think that Professor Palfreyman had guessed this, for one evening after supper he asked me if I would be interested in acting as housekeeper for him for the time being, for which he would pay me a small salary. To be honest, I think that in his kindness he would willingly have given me a little money for doing nothing, and that the suggestion of acting as his housekeeper was made more as a sop to my pride than out of any real need. Anyway, after I had protested, as before, at his unwonted kindness, I accepted his proposal. I saw no other option for myself.

“The work was not difficult, and I had, as I mentioned, Mrs Wheeler and her daughter to help me. Soon, when I had become accustomed to the weekly routine, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. I flatter myself that the professor had realized by then that I was capable of somewhat more than simply ordering the groceries and parcelling up the laundry once a week, and when he asked if I would like to assist him in tidying some of his professional papers, I readily agreed. From that moment on – a month or two after I had first arrived at Bluebell Cottage – I became the professor’s unofficial assistant and secretary, and he increased my salary accordingly. This work I found very interesting, and I have learnt a lot about archaeology, about which I previously knew very little, and also about ancient Greece and Rome, which are the professor’s special field of expertise.

‘‘Sometimes, of an evening, we would sit by the fire with our cocoa and he would tell me the most fascinating anecdotes of his explorations in the wildest parts of the world, and of the great advance in knowledge which the discovery of an insignificant-looking piece of pottery might represent. I think he was pleased that I took such an interest in his work, and he began to show me some of his own collection of artefacts and works of art, which is extensive but utterly disorganized. Most of these things are from the Classical period, as you would expect, but there are also items dating from the Middle Ages and the period of the Renaissance. Professor Palfreyman was in Italy at the time of that terrible earthquake in Rienzi, about twenty years ago, when the church there was practically destroyed, and he played a major part in saving much of value from the rubble, and in subsequently excavating the ruins. As a mark of their gratitude, the regional authorities presented him with an enormous bundle of old documents and similar things, much of which he himself had rescued from the church crypt. Most of this material languishes still in a dusty old tin box, as Professor Palfreyman has never found the time to sort it all out. I suggested that I might make a start in trying to catalogue it for him, to which suggestion he readily agreed. You will appreciate, then, how, as the months passed, I was kept very busy.

“A few weeks after he had first visited Bluebell Cottage, Tim – Mr Martin – began to call more frequently, which also made my life there more interesting. Professor Ainscow and the other members of the department began to use Mr Martin as a willing messenger, to convey sundry books and documents between the university and Professor Palfreyman. He also called sometimes on his own initiative, and although I am not so conceited as to suppose that it was to see me that he called, rather than to consult Professor Palfreyman, it is certainly true that we saw a great deal of each other. During the university’s spring vacation, he came down to see us several times a week, and helped me get the professor’s papers and other documents into some kind of order. This period was one of the happiest of my life.

“But if most of my daily life at Bluebell Cottage was interesting and enjoyable, there were other aspects of it which were more than a little odd. Not long after I had first moved in there, I was passing the professor’s study one morning when I heard voices. Thinking that he must have a visitor whom I hadn’t seen arrive, I knocked on the door and put my head in, to enquire if they would like a pot of tea. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found that there was no one in the room but Professor Palfreyman.