My first meeting with Sherlock Holmes was less an introduction of flat mates and more a diagnosis of an addict. Because he was — thoroughly — inflamed. Not inflamed in the medical sense; more poetically, he was as energetic as a bat dancing in a fire. So much was he engulfed in his drug and study, that a proper meeting had to be rescheduled during a more sober morning. The contrast in behaviour, I foolishly thought initially, was vast.

But let us rewind and start again.