This is the first time that the Knolly Estate has allowed the great man's memoirs to be published. What follows is the twenty second chapter of 'The African Adventure'.

We pushed our way out past the milling entertainers, Bertie, elbows akimbo, whacking Juan Quer in the side so hard that his nose flute exploded from his nose. The Paraguayan waved his thanks as we pushed on through and apologised to everyone else for covering them in snot. Still, it cleared a path for us.

'Knolly, hold up old chap, she can't get far away wearing that dress and she must be making for the room we found earlier to start the rest of the evening's entertainment. Plus, there's the fact that I ate more than you did.'

'Oh yes ... you ate it all up, except for the sprouts!'

Bertie looked at me in a hurt way. 'It's not my fault.'

'Yes, but all you had to do was keep quiet and roll them over to my plate. But enough of this; it can wait until we are both thinking straight. I can't believe that Elspeth will not be taking a whiff of the gas when everyone else was making their way to the outbuilding, so what is she up to?'

A door closed up on the landing.

'Look, Bertie, time to split up. You keep tabs on Rhodes and Dr Jim and I'll follow Elspeth. And for goodness sake, keep out of trouble.'

Bertie grinned. 'You can rely on me.'

Unfortunately, Bertie's reliability was one of my greatest concerns.

Leaving Bertie to find his own way back through the dining room and out to the grounds, I took the remaining stairs two at a time. Considering the time it had taken for us to find our way to the dining room earlier that evening, I was surprised to find myself outside the 'storeroom' so quickly.

I paused for breath grabbed the handle and turned it. Nothing. 'Damn, locked.' Why did I think it would still be open anyway?

I bent down and peered through the keyhole. There was enough light to see that no one was in the room, but there were certainly less canisters about. No sign of Elspeth, though. I crossed to the window and could see the outbuilding where Dr Jim was holding the door open. There was Bertie, casually chatting to Monty as they filed in.

'So,' I thought, 'the Doctor is in charge of administering the gas.'

I heard voices further down the hall: Elspeth talking to her maid. I crept forward, sticking to the shadows.

'... and if anyone asks where I am, tell them ... tell them I have a headache.'

'A headache Ma'am, yes Ma'am. I'll see you in the morning then, Ma'am?'

The maid's footsteps faded away. There was a click and a door was closed, but not locked.

'What is she up to?' I mused. 'Not wanting anyone to see her till the morning — and yet she had struck me as a night owl. Well, Knolly old fruit, only one way to find out.'

I licked the palms of my hands and smoothed back my hair, straightened my bow tie and gave my tails a flick. I took a deep breath, knocked on the door and opened it.

'Mrs Devries, Elspeth, I wish to apologise for Mr Harrison-Harrison's outburst. I can see you were upset, but that is no reason for you to take to your room for the rest of the evening.'

I stopped to take in the surroundings of her bedroom. Elspeth was on the other side of her bed by a fireplace. She looked up, but seemed to look through me as if in a trance. She smiled and took a bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece and a hypodermic syringe from a neat-looking case disguised as a book. With her long, tapered fingers, she adjusted the delicate needle and pushed back the sleeve of her dress. Her eyes seemed to rest on her arm, which already was dotted and scarred with puncture marks. I coughed and closed the door. She looked up at me and smiled once more, her eyes sparkling.

'Knolly, you look shocked to see me thus. I believe this is all the rage back in England — why, even the great Sherlock Holmes is not adverse to partaking of such a stimulus.'

'Madam, you should not believe everything you read.'

'Ah, but the good Dr Jameson assures me it is good for me, and who am I to argue with a man as knowledgeable as he? Even now, he is helping to entertain the rest of my guests.... You don't like him, do you?'

'The good Doctor seems to revel in alternative medicine.'

She giggled at this and thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston and sank back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction and a dreamy look on her face.

How I cursed myself for putting the idea into Conan Doyle's head in the first place. A capital idea to help push the sales of the 'Sign of the Four' by making his new hero dependant on cocaine — why didn't I tell him to use my own drinking habits instead? After all, he'd milked Bertie and myself for other ideas. But no, this was not all my doing. Some of this rests with Dr Jim and at least I was in a position to do something about this woman.

'Take me to bed, Knolly,' she whispered, shaking me out of my reverie. I picked her up in my arms and lifted her bodily out of the library and along the hallway to the stairs. 'BERTIE!!!' I yelled.

But wait, have I put him in danger too?

'Bertie, Bertie, Bertie, Bert, bee, bee, beeee, beee, beee,' Elspeth rambled in my arms. 'Oh elephants, big scary elephants crawling up the walls. Arrgggh!'

I staggered as Elspeth struggled in my arms to escape whatever she was currently seeing. We almost fell down the staircase and into the door of my room. No one had come to my aid, despite all the noise we were making together. The servants had obviously been given the night off to avoid their seeing the mistress and guests making complete fools of themselves.

I propped Elspeth against the wall and got my key hastily into the lock. With the door now open, I lifted the drug-induced Mrs DeVries onto my bed, where she started to disrobe, got down to her undergarments and then proceeded to do a remarkable impression of a cat cleaning its ears and whiskers. Checking to make sure that there were no sharp instruments about, I retreated from my room and locked it once again. I kicked in the door to Bertie's room and began to rummage in our medicine chest, provided by Hobbes. That was when I noticed that we’d both forgotten to take the 'all-purpose antidote'.

A horrible thought passed before my eyes: 'Bertie was taking in gas on a full stomach.'

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