Rosalind opened the door to him. She started slightly, as a young girl will, and said:

‘Oh, I’ll tell father.’

With which she disappeared, leaving Birkin in the hall, looking at some reproductions from Picasso, lately introduced by Gudrun. He was admiring the almost wizard, sensuous apprehension of the earth, when Will Brangwen appeared, rolling down his shirt sleeves.

‘Well,’ said Brangwen, ‘I’ll get a coat.’ And he too disappeared for a moment. Then he returned, and opened the door of the drawing–room, saying:

‘You must excuse me, I was just doing a bit of work in the shed. Come inside, will you.’

Birkin entered and sat down. He looked at the bright, reddish face of the other man, at the narrow brow and the very bright eyes, and at the rather sensual lips that unrolled wide and expansive under the black cropped moustache. How curious it was that this was a human being! What Brangwen thought himself to be, how meaningless it was, confronted with the reality of him. Birkin could see only a strange, inexplicable, almost patternless collection of passions and desires and suppressions and traditions and mechanical ideas, all cast unfused and disunited into this slender, bright–faced man of nearly fifty, who was as unresolved now as he was at twenty, twenty and as uncreated. How could he be the parent of Ursula, when he was not created himself. He was not a parent. A slip of living flesh had been transmitted through him, but the spirit had not come from him. The spirit had not come from any ancestor, it had come out of the unknown. A child is the child of the mystery, or it is uncreated.

‘The weather’s not so bad as it has been,’ said Brangwen, after waiting a moment. There was no connection between the two men.

‘No,’ said Birkin. ‘It was full moon two days ago.’

‘Oh! You believe in the moon then, affecting the weather?’

‘No, I don’t think I do. I don’t really know enough about it.’

‘You know what they say? The moon and the weather may change together, but the change of the moon won’t change the weather.’

‘Is that it?’ said Birkin. ‘I hadn’t heard it.’

There was a pause. Then Birkin said:

‘Am I hindering you? I called to see Ursula, really. Is she at home?’

‘I don’t believe she is. I believe she’s gone to the library. I’ll just see.’

Birkin could hear him enquiring in the dining–room.

‘No,’ he said, coming back. ‘But she won’t be long. You wanted to speak to her?’

Birkin looked across at the other man with curious calm, clear eyes.

‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I wanted to ask her to marry me.’

A point of light came on the golden–brown eyes of the elder man.

‘O–oh?’ he said, looking at Birkin, then dropping his eyes before the calm, steadily watching look of the other: ‘Was she expecting you then?’

Mr. Gregson, who had listened to this address with considerable impatience, could contain himself no longer. “Look here, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” he said, “we are all ready to acknowledge that you are a smart man, and that you have your own methods of working. We want something more than mere theory and preaching now, though. It is a case of taking the man. I have made my case out, and it seems I was wrong. Young Charpentier could not have been engaged in this second affair. Lestrade went after his man, Stangerson, and it appears that he was wrong too. You have thrown out hints here, and hints there, and seem to know more than we do, but the time has come when we feel that we have a right to ask you straight how much you do know of the business. Can you name the man who did it?”

“I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right, sir,” remarked Lestrade. “We have both tried, and we have both failed. You have remarked more than once since I have been in the room that you had all the evidence which you require. Surely you will not withhold it any longer.”

“Any delay in arresting the assassin,” I observed, “might give him time to perpetrate some fresh atrocity.”

Thus pressed by us all, Holmes showed signs of irresolution. He continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his chest and his brows drawn down, as was his habit when lost in thought.

“There will be no more murders,” he said at last, stopping abruptly and facing us. “You can put that consideration out of the question. You have asked me if I know the name of the assassin. I do. The mere knowing of his name is a small thing, however, compared with the power of laying our hands upon him. This I expect very shortly to do. I have good hopes of managing it through my own arrangements; but it is a thing which needs delicate handling, for we have a shrewd and desperate man to deal with, who is supported, as I have had occasion to prove, by another who is as clever as himself. As long as this man has no idea that anyone can have a clue there is some chance of securing him- but if he had the slightest suspicion, he would change his name, and vanish in an instant among the four million inhabitants of this great city. Without meaning to hurt either of your feelings, I am bound to say that T consider these men to be more than a match for the official force, and that is why I have not asked your assistance. If I fail, I shall, of course, incur all the blame due to this omission; but that I am prepared for. At present I am ready to promise that the instant that I can communicate with you without endangering my own combinations, I shall do so.”

Gregson and Lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this assurance, or by the depreciating allusion to the detective police. The former had flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while the other’s beady eyes glistened with curiosity and resentment. Neither of them had time to speak, however, before there was a tap at the door, and the spokesman of the street Arabs, young Wiggins, introduced his insignificant and unsavoury person.