I met Mr. Kevin James in November during one of my pupils’ recitals. He’d been dragged along by the child’s mother, together with a host of other poor souls, and had stood silently near the back door. As soon as the recital began, he slipped out, and I joined him.

“Enjoying yourself?” I asked.

He leaned languidly against the doorpost. “You go to these affairs often?”

“Naturally. I’m the instructor.”

“How do you stand it?”

I shrugged. “Comes with the job. Normally they serve punch later.” I tapped the pocket of my well-worn coat. “Punch with a punch.”

He grinned. “Don’t mind if I do.”

We became friends, and he had me to his house for dinner two or three times. One night we’d been speaking of detective stories, and he asked me to join him at the Martha Hudson dinner. I was happy to accept.

The dinner was held at a rambling structure in Arlington Heights known, for some obscure reason, as “The Ranch.” The crowd was not exactly what I had expected, consisting mostly of people my own age. They all appeared rather more well-to-do than I, however, which was not surprising.

As drinks were served, we all congregated in the large drawing room, the principal furnishings of which were the bookshelves that lined three of the walls, the huge oil portrait of, I later learned, the Master, and a long table upon which had been set bound copies of some reference works, a violin, a pipe, and a cap. Our host, Mr. Hugo Arrowroot, proposed a toast to Martha Hudson, then to Holmes, after which things assumed a more informal air. We ate a fine dinner of which coq au vin was the main course and, over brandy, fell into a heated discussion concerning the actual existence of fictional characters.