And Sir Malcolm sat back and smiled again. Connie did not answer.

‘I hope you had a real man at last,’ he said to her after a while, sensually alert.

‘I did. That’s the trouble. There aren’t many of them about,’ she said.

‘No, by God!’ he mused. ‘There aren’t! Well, my dear, to look at you, he was a lucky man. Surely he wouldn’t make trouble for you?’

‘Oh no! He leaves me my own mistress entirely.’

‘Quite! Quite! A genuine man would.’

Sir Malcolm was pleased. Connie was his favourite daughter, he had always liked the female in her. Not so much of her mother in her as in Hilda. And he had always disliked Clifford. So he was pleased, and very tender with his daughter, as if the unborn child were his child.

He drove with her to Hartland’s hotel, and saw her installed: then went round to his club. She had refused his company for the evening.

She found a letter from Mellors.

I won’t come round to your hotel, but I’ll wait for you outside the Golden Cock in Adam Street at seven.

There he stood, tall and slender, and so different, in a formal suit of thin dark cloth. He had a natural distinction, but he had not the cut–to–pattern look of her class. Yet, she saw at once, he could go anywhere. He had a native breeding breeding which was really much nicer than the cut–to–pattern class thing.

‘Ah, there you are! How well you look!’

‘Yes! But not you.’

She looked in his face anxiously. It was thin, and the cheekbones showed. But his eyes smiled at her, and she felt at home with him. There it was: suddenly, the tension of keeping up her appearances fell from her. Something flowed out of him physically, that made her feel inwardly at ease and happy, at home. With a woman’s now alert instinct for happiness, she registered it at once. ‘I’m happy when he’s there!’ Not all the sunshine of Venice had given her this inward expansion and warmth.

‘Was it horrid for you?’ she asked as she sat opposite him at table. He was too thin; she saw it now. His hand lay as she knew it, with the curious loose forgottenness of a sleeping animal. She wanted so much to take it and kiss it. But she did not quite dare.

‘People are always horrid,’ he said.

‘And did you mind very much?’

‘I minded, as I always shall mind. And I knew I was a fool to mind.’

‘Did you feel like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail? Clifford said you felt like that.’

He looked at her. It was cruel of her at that moment: for his pride had suffered bitterly.

‘I suppose I did,’ he said.

She never knew the fierce bitterness with which he resented insult.

There was a long pause.

‘And did you miss me?’ she asked.

‘I was glad you were out of it.’

Again there was a pause.

‘But did people BELIEVE about you and me?’ she asked.

“The effect of our inquiries at Woolwich has in the main been against young Cadogan West; but the indications at the window would lend themselves to a more favourable hypothesis. Let us suppose, for example, that he had been approached by some foreign agent. It might have been done under such pledges as would have prevented him from speaking of it, and yet would have affected his thoughts in the direction indicated by his remarks to his fiancee. Very good. We will now suppose that as he went to the theatre with the young lady he suddenly, in the fog, caught a glimpse of this same agent going in the direction of the office. He was an impetuous man, quick in his decisions. Everything gave way to his duty. He followed the man, reached the window, saw the abstraction of the documents, and pursued the thief. In this way we get over the objection that no one would take originals when he could make copies. This outsider had to take originals. So far it holds together.”

“What is the next step?”

“Then we come into difficulties. One would imagine that under such circumstances the first act of young Cadogan West would be to seize the villain and raise the alarm. Why did he not do so? Could it have been an official superior who took the papers? That would explain West’s conduct. Or could the chief have given West the slip in the fog, and West started at once to London to head him off from his own rooms, presuming that he knew where the rooms were? The call must have been very pressing, since he left his girl standing in the fog and made no effort to communicate with her. Our scent runs cold here, and there is a vast gap between either hypothesis and the laying of West’s body, with seven papers in his pocket, on the roof of a Metropolitan train. My instinct now is to work from the other end. If Mycroft has given us the list of addresses we may be able to pick our man and follow two tracks instead of one.”

Surely enough, a note awaited us at Baker Street. A government messenger had brought it post-haste. Holmes glanced at it and threw it over to me.

There are numerous small fry, but few who would handle so big an affair. The only men worth considering are Adolph Meyer, of 13 Great George Street, Westminster; Louis La Rothiere, of Campden Mansions, Notting Hill; and Hugo Oberstein, 13 Caulfield Gardens, Kensington. The latter was known to be in town on Monday and is now reported as having left. Glad to hear you have seen some light. The Cabinet awaits your final report with the utmost anxiety. Urgent representations have arrived from the very highest quarter. The whole force of the State is at your back if you should need it.

MYCROFT.

“I’m afraid,” said Holmes, smiling, “that all the queen’s horses and all the queen’s men cannot avail in this matter.” He had spread out his big map of London and leaned eagerly over it. “Well, well,” said he presently with an exclamation of satisfaction, “things are turning a little in our direction at last. Why Watson, I do honestly believe that we are going to pull it off, after all.” He slapped me on the shoulder with a sudden burst of hilarity. “I am going out now. It is only a reconnaissance. I will do nothing serious without my trusted comrade and biographer at my elbow. Do you stay here, and the odds are that you will see me again in an hour or two. If time hangs heavy get foolscap and a pen, and begin your narrative of how we saved the State.”