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Holmes leaned forward and set the metronome into action, snapping his fingers in time to it for just a moment. He then settled back into his chair and stared across at the plump and mildly pompous creature sitting opposite him.

"Pray continue. I just needed to set my mind upon your problem in an orderly fashion, and music, or anything akin to it, seems to assist me."

"Yes, quite right. As I was saying, she keeps champagne..."

"...in a pretty cabinet. Yes, just so. What else can you tell me about her?" cried Holmes.

"Well the stuff is good name French wine; Moet and Chandon. Outside of that I'll have to think on it."

The seemingly overstuffed marmot sat back and mutely considered the question, unmindful that his waistcoat buttons were straining under the load.

"When pressed to the point, I must say that it's hard for me to come up with anything concrete. She is a very refined person, I will say that, to a degree one might almost call excess. I was once complaining about some governmental trifle and she laughed at me, patted my head and said, Qu'ils mangent de la brioche."

I leaned forward and said knowingly,

"Just like Marie Antionette?"

Holmes gave a tsk-tsk and wrinkled his nose up at my remark.

"John, I'm ashamed of you. That phrase was coined well before she came into power. Such inaccuracy hardly becomes you."

"My many pardons for not having the stores of knowledge you do," I said with self-righteous indignation.

Holmes sighed.

"I don't keep you for your knowledge, but your excellent help in providing me with inspiration from time to time. Now, be inspiring and keep your comments to yourself. Listening is a wonderful method of adding to anyone's stores, if one but opens their ears and closes their mouth."

He turned to the marmot.

"Please continue Mr. Robinson."

"Yes. She had a way of clouding your awareness. I can see her in my mind's eye, and yet when pushed to give you details, I find myself lacking the ability to give even one. She is well versed in etiquette. She is also extraordinarily nice, when she wants to be."

"Yes, yes," cried the detective. "A description that encompasses a good portion of the upper classes. More facts and fewer expressions of emotion if you would."

"Indeed! She was a connoisseur of the finer things in life. Caviar and cigarettes, champagne in Bohemian glass, fine silks and perfumes..."

"From Paris?"

"Naturally!"

"Again, you tell me nothing. Where does she get her caviar, for example?"

"Ah, I see. Now that I can tell you, for there was a crate in the pantry. Do you know the importing house of Khrushchev and Kennedy?"

Holmes nodded.

"Their warehouse abuts the Thames."

"Precisely! The crate came from there."

"Curious choice, though at the same time, an excellent one. The Russian half of the partnership is well connected with the Romanovs, which would grant him access to the best quality merchandize.

"How do you know so much about him?" Mr. Robinson asked cautiously.

"There was a little matter of a decorative egg that I solved for them, nothing more."

"If you say so."

"I just did. Now, what else can you tell me? At this stage all I can see is that you had a fling with a female and now she's gone and you'd like to find out who she was. Does it matter? I mean really, this is more like the pith of a penny dreadful."

The marmot managed to look indignant.

"I would agree with you Mr. Holmes, but in the month since she has vanished, I came across no fewer than three of my colleagues who were secretly engaged with a woman who sounds suspiciously like mine."

Holmes' eyes narrowed as he took that information in.

"You, being a bachelor, could be excused from having a dalliance or two."

"I say, how do you know I'm not married?"

"The obvious signs; largely you lack a ring, but excusing that, you have dust on your hat, mud on the edges of your shoes and enough blotted stains on your overcoat to tell me you eat out often, and just as often you do so hurriedly. Not the signs of a man with a wife, or at the least, a caring one."

"By Jove! I would never have noticed such things."

I snickered and said in the low voice,

"But you will now."

"Too true!"

Holmes frowned a little.

"The others you speak of. Married?"

"Each and every one of them."

"So for them, letting word out about their affair could ruin them."

"Indeed! It came to light over a game of whist. The conversation was lagging, and I rather unwisely let on about my lover. They wanted to know more about her, and as I gave them additional details, they began to pale, each one in turn. While some of the details about her varied, it was concluded to be the same woman."

"You're certain is wasn't coincidence?"

"On either side of that question, it would have been remarkable had it been all different females, but it is even more so that it is just one. Here," he said pulling out an envelope, "are the calling cards she gave to each of us."

Holmes took them, flipped from one to another, and then went back through them again. He grabbed his magnifying glass and inspected them minutely. When he was finished, he handed them to me.

"Do you see anything connecting them?"

Taking them, I looked at the names, finding one to be for an Illanya Androvich, another for Iris Anderson, a third for Isabella Angeles, and lastly an Ignacia Antolini."

"They are all based upon the same two letters, I and A."

"Good, though we could possibly infer even more. One sounds Russian, another British, the third Spanish and the last one Italian. As the names suggest, did she, in each case, seem to be from the region, judging by her speech?"

"Mine called herself Iris, and she was as British as they come, though she pronounced her words with exceptional care, as though she had been thoroughly schooled."

"And the others?"

"I never met theirs, so my information is at best, second hand. But from what they told me, each of them was equal to mine in the appropriate language."

Holmes leaned back in his chair and pulled out his pipe.

"Therefore, either a very talented lady, or the remarkable situation where there are four similar ladies from four different countries. Did she engage yourself and your companions in the same house?"

"We compared notes on that as well, and the answer is no."

"Four houses, four differently named ladies, all capable of speaking English and apparently three other languages. Species?"

"As much a fox as you are, or the queen for that matter, though her majesty be grey to your red sir."

"All of the ladies involved then; all matched equally?"

"Yes sir."

Holmes' brows knit together.

"Why bother me with this? Did she steal anything from you? Get you to give up government secrets?"

"Nothing of the kind that we were aware of, and yet, if it is the same lady, we have been left baffled as to what she wanted. As it is, we were directed here specifically."

"Explain."

The marmot pulled out another envelope and handed it over to the detective. Inside were four smaller envelopes, three torn open and one intact. The latter one had inscribed upon it S. Holmes. Sherlock looked up.

"Someone wanted you to come to me?"

"So it would seem. I rather thought you were merely fictional, from the accounts I read in the newspaper. It never dawned on me you were for real."

Holmes smiled enigmatically.

"Yes, such is fame gleaned from the tabloids. You can thank my chronicler for that."

I, with practiced patience, ignored the barb.

Holmes was already removing the contents of one of the envelopes, only to find a single playing card. He shook out the other two and pulled open the last one. All were playing cards, each representing a suit. He flipped them back and forth, looking at the design with genuine interest. He finally handed them over to me, who stared at them for the longest time without deducing anything. I handed them back to my partner, who was containing a smirk, but also looking rather excited.

"Mr. Robinson, what do you make of these cards?"

"I rather think you're the detective. I see four queens from the same deck of cards."

"As do I. Do you see nothing more?"

He squinted through his glasses for a moment before looking up in defeat.

"I see nothing."

"And this is why you came to me. I see that the deck of cards is not British made, but rather from the states, in particular, a city called Cincinnati. This pattern on the reverse is very characteristic, and as you say, they appear to be from the same deck. They show no stain or wear, so we may presume they were meant only for this purpose. Four very specific cards culled from a deck, made in the United States of America, and presented to me."

"I see nothing logical in that."

"One must have greater knowledge to understand any possible significance these cards might have; someone who can discern the facts behind them."

The marmot leaned forward in his chair.

"Might I be so bold as to think you have some idea who is behind this and why?"

"Only the who. Why remains as clouded to me as Downing Street on a foggy day."

"Well man, spit it out. Who is she?"

Holmes sat there, his pipe hanging from the corner of his mouth, deep in thought. He steepled his fingers and was silent for a while

"She is the acme of her gender, Mr. Robinson, the epitome of what the muses worked so hard to achieve, a paragon of intelligence that earned my respect a number of years ago."

"And is she dangerous?"

"Anyone can be dangerous. Why do you ask?"

"I just remembered overhearing her talking with someone once and catching the words nitroglycerin, gelatin, and gunpowder."

"And with whom was she speaking?"

"I have no idea. I was still in bed, feeling a little dreamy at the time from the afterglow. She had wandered into the adjoining room. Perhaps it was nothing."

"Perhaps so. Anything else you can think of relevant to this case?"

"Nothing solid. If you would like, I could consult with my colleagues..."

"No need. I will call upon them if I find it necessary."

"But I haven't given you their names!"

"Nor will you need to Mr. Robinson. I will find them on my own, but only if absolutely necessary. I hardly wish to be the cause of a divorce."

The portly marmot stood, examined the stains on his overcoat, chuckled and nodded to the two of us before departing through the door. I got up and closed it behind him.

"My dear Watson, does anything about this case sound familiar?"

"Good heavens no! One woman carrying on four affairs with four aliases from four different residences! I would think that would be exhausting!"

"Not for the right woman. Once a day would all she would need, for the men could hardly be expected to make a showing every day. She would have plenty of time to practice her ruse prior to each one's visit. I would think that would take no small skill, but for the accomplished thespian, it could prove entertaining."

"Again, we come back to the why of the matter."

"Agreed. This is my present dilemma."

"Shouldn't you be concerned with who this woman is?"

Holmes raised his eyebrows.

"She has already told us."

I lit a cigarette and sank into the couch.

"We have four names. Which one is the real one?"

"None of them are."

"They pray tell me how you have achieved the knowing of her name."

Holmes tapped out his pipe and added fresh tobacco, lighting it from the fireplace.

"We know that she has taste and poise. From what our client said, one could assume she spoke just like a baroness."

Watson nodded.

"And it would seem, she never kept the same address."

"Quite right. That would avoid complications."

"Can we assume she has an insatiable appetite?"

"Four men? Yes, either that or she is a glutton for punishment. Mr. Robinson hardly seems the lothario."

"You? Judging another's sexual prowess?"

"He is overweight, far from athletic, and his breath speaks of poor oral hygiene. If the others are so inclined, then it would be tedious for any woman to bear."

"Fine. What of the playing cards?"

"Yes, the cards. You viewed them and you found no clues?"

"Nothing."

Holmes held one up.

"They are all uniquely outré. The king will often have the depiction of a sword at his waist, but never the queen. These all share that one oddity."

"But what would that mean?"

"A queen with a sword. That would, one might say, make her dangerous. One might even call her a Killer Queen."

"I don't follow."

"No, you don't."

Holmes rose and went to his desk where he retrieved a framed photograph. Watson knew who it was and his eyes lit up, but Holmes put his finger to his lips. He pulled open the back and extracted a letter that had been secreted there."

"She wrote me some months after the case was over. Her husband had died from some fever or another. But the thing that stuck in my head was this; ...and so don't you think, Mr. Holmes, my daring pursuer and crafty counterfeit, that I would have made a killer queen?"

Watson sat up.

"Then it is Irene Adler!"

"I can think of no other vixen with the stage talent to pull off such a feat. Of course, her reference was in regards to the case you wrote up, The Scandal in Bohemia. She was far above that paltry royal, though he had not the wit to see it."

"But what could she be up to?"

"That remains to be determined. But the use of words pertaining to explosives is very troubling. I could hardly see her returning to London for any sinister reason. It doesn't fit her methodology. This is something new and therefore troubling."

"What will you do?"

"Smoke. In the meantime, if I could trouble to run around her old address and see if, as unlikely as it might be, whether she has taken up residence there again."

"If she sees me, she'll know me."

"Yes, and therefore, if she is there, she will know we have found her. That does seem to be what she wants, if she wants anything at all."

I stood, donned my coat and pulled a at over my ears.

"I'll return in a few hours. Shall I pick anything up for you while I am out?"

"No. I will be behind you in an hour. I shall be heading in an entirely different direction of the city, after which, I intend to peruse the back editions of the newspapers for clues I may have overlooked before. That I missed her presence is inexcusable."

"She seems to have gone far in avoiding any notice."

"Yes, until today, but this is now a month after the fact. She may have fled after performing whatever deed she had intended. If there is something afoot, I need to know what it is and if it needs to be thwarted."

"Where are you headed?"

"The Diogenes Club. I need to talk with Mycroft."

I passed Mrs. Hudson in the hallway, announced myself and Holmes would be gone for part of the day, and vanished out the front door.

I failed to notice the young lad who fell in step a few yards behind me.