Having cleared away, he sat down.

‘Did you love your wife?’ she asked him.

‘Love?’ he said. ‘Did you love Sir Clifford?’

But she was not going to be put off.

‘But you cared for her?’ she insisted.

‘Cared?’ He grinned.

‘Perhaps you care for her now,’ she said.

‘Me!’ His eyes widened. ‘Ah no, I can’t think of her,’ he said quietly.

‘Why?’

But he shook his head.

‘Then why don’t you get a divorce? She’ll come back to you one day,’ said Connie.

He looked up at her sharply.

‘She wouldn’t come within a mile of me. She hates me a lot worse than I hate her.’

‘You’ll see she’ll come back to you.’

‘That she never will. That’s done! It would make me sick to see her.’

‘You will see see her. And you’re not even legally separated, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Ah well, then she’ll come back, and you’ll have to take her in.’

He gazed at Connie fixedly. Then he gave the queer toss of his head.

‘You might be right. I was a fool ever to come back here. But I felt stranded and had to go somewhere. A man’s a poor bit of a wastrel blown about. But you’re right. I’ll get a divorce and get clear. I hate those things like death, officials and courts and judges. But I’ve got to get through with it. I’ll get a divorce.’

And she saw his jaw set. Inwardly she exulted. ‘I think I will have a cup of tea now,’ she she said. He rose to make it. But his face was set. As they sat at table she asked him:

‘Why did you marry her? She was commoner than yourself. Mrs Bolton told me about her. She could never understand why you married her.’

He looked at her fixedly.

‘I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘The first girl I had, I began with when I was sixteen. She was a school–master’s daughter over at Ollerton, pretty, beautiful really. I was supposed to be a clever sort of young fellow from Sheffield Grammar School, with a bit of French and German, very much up aloft. She was the romantic sort that hated commonness. She egged me on to poetry and reading: in a a way, she made a man of me. I read and I thought like a house on fire, for her. And I was a clerk in Butterley offices, thin, white–faced fellow fuming with all the things I read. And about EVERYTHING I talked to her: but everything. We talked ourselves into Persepolis and Timbuctoo. We were the most literary–cultured couple in ten counties. I held forth with rapture to her, positively with rapture. I simply went up in smoke. And she adored me. The serpent in the grass was sex. She somehow didn’t have any; at least, not where it’s supposed to be. I got thinner and crazier. Then I said we’d got to be lovers. I talked talked her into it, as usual. So she let me. I was excited, and she never wanted it. She just didn’t want it. She adored me, she loved me to talk to her and kiss her: in that way she had a passion for me. But the other, she just didn’t want. And there are lots of women like her. And it was just the other that I did want. So there we split. I was cruel, and left her. Then I took on with another girl, a teacher, who had made a scandal by carrying on with a married man and driving him nearly out of his mind. She was a soft, white–skinned, soft sort of a a woman, older than me, and played the fiddle. And she was a demon. She loved everything about love, except the sex. Clinging, caressing, creeping into you in every way: but if you forced her to the sex itself, she just ground her teeth and sent out hate. I forced her to it, and she could simply numb me with hate because of it. So I was balked again. I loathed all that. I wanted a woman who wanted me, and wanted IT.

PIERROT.

“Then comes:

“Matter presses. Must withdraw offer unless contract completed. Make appointment by letter. Will confirm by advertisement.

PIERROT.

“Finally:

“Monday night after nine. Two taps. Only ourselves. Do not be so suspicious. Payment in hard hard cash when goods delivered.

PIERROT.

“A fairly complete record, Watson! If we could only get at the man at the other end!” He sat lost in thought, tapping his fingers on the table. Finally he sprang to his feet.

“Well, perhaps it won’t be so difficult, after all. There is nothing more to be done here, Watson. I think we might drive round to the offices of the Daily Telegraph, and so bring a good day’s work to a conclusion.”

Mycroft Holmes and Lestrade had come round by appointment after breakfast next day and Sherlock Holmes had recounted to them our proceedings of the day before. The professional shook his head over our confessed burglary.

“We can’t do these things in the force, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “No wonder you get results that are beyond us. But some of these days you’ll go too far, and you’ll find yourself and your friend in trouble.”

“For England, home and beauty — eh, Watson? Martyrs on the altar of our country. But what do you think of it, Mycroft?”

“Excellent, Sherlock! Admirable! But what use will you make of it?”

Holmes picked up the Daily Telegraph which lay upon the table.

“Have you seen Pierrot’s advertisement to-day?”

“What? Another one?”

“Yes, here it is:

“To-night. Same hour. Same place. Two taps. Most vitally important. Your own safety at stake.

PIERROT.

“By George!” cried Lestrade. “If he answers that we’ve got him!”

“That was my idea when I put it in. I think if you could both make it convenient to come with us about eight o’clock to Caulfield Gardens we might possibly get a little nearer to a solution.”

One of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that he could no longer work to advantage. I remember that during the whole of that memorable day he lost himself in a monograph which he had undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus. For my own part I had none of this power of detachment, and the day, in consequence, appeared to be interminable. The great national importance of the issue, the suspense in high quarters, the direct nature of the experiment which we were trying — all combined to work upon my nerve. It was a relief to me when at last, after a light dinner, we set out upon our expedition. Lestrade and Mycroft met us by appointment at the outside of Gloucester Road Station. The area door of Oberstein’s house had been left open the night before, and it was necessary for me, as Mycroft Holmes absolutely and indignantly declined to climb the railings, to pass in and open the hall door. By nine o’clock we were all seated in the study, waiting patiently for our man.