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, slender bright–faced man of nearly fifty, who was as unresolved now as he was at 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?’

“And his name is?”

“Arthur Charpentier, sub-lieutenant in Her Majesty’s navy,” cried Gregson pompously rubbing his fat hands and inflating his chest.

Sherlock Holmes gave a sigh of relief and relaxed into a smile.

“Take a seat, and try one of these cigars,” he said. “We are anxious to know how you managed it. Will you have some whisky and water?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” the detective answered. “The tremendous exertions which I have gone through during the last day or two have worn me out. Not so much bodily exertion, you understand, as the strain upon the mind. You will appreciate that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for we are both brain-workers.”

“You do me too much honour,” said Holmes, gravely. “Let us hear how you arrived at this most gratifying result.”

The detective seated himself in the armchair, and puffed complacently at his cigar. Then suddenly he slapped his thigh in a paroxysm of amusement.

“The fun of it is,” he cried, “that that fool Lestrade, who thinks himself so smart, has gone off upon the wrong track altogether. He is after the secretary Stangerson, who had no more to do with the crime than the babe unborn. I have no doubt that he has caught him by this time.”

The idea tickled Gregson so much that he laughed until he choked.

“And how did you get your clue?”

“Ah, I’ll tell you all about it. Of course, Dr. Watson, this is strictly between ourselves. The first difficulty which we had to contend with was the finding of this American’s antecedents. Some people would have waited until their advertisements were answered, or until parties came forward and volunteered information. That is not Tobias Gregson’s way of going to work. You remember the hat beside the dead man?”

“Yes,” said Holmes; “by John Underwood and Sons, 129, Camberwell Road.”

Gregson looked quite crestfallen.

“I had no idea that you noticed that,” he said. “Have you been there?”

“No.”

“Ha!” cried Gregson, in a relieved voice; “you should never neglect a chance, however small it may seem.”

“To a great mind, nothing is little,” remarked Holmes, sententiously.

“Well, I went to Underwood, and asked him if he had sold a hat of that size and description. He looked over his books, and came on it at once. He had sent the hat to a Mr. Drebber, residing at Charpentier’s Boarding Establishment, Torquay Terrace. Thus I got at his address.”

“Smart, — very smart!” murmured Sherlock Holmes.

“I next called upon Madame Charpentier,” continued the detective. “I found her very pale and distressed. Her daughter was in the room, too — an uncommonly fine girl she is, too; she was looking red about the eyes and her lips trembled as I spoke to her. That didn’t escape my notice. I began to smell a rat. You know the feeling, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, when you come upon the right scent — a kind of thrill in your nerves. ‘Have you heard of the mysterious death of your late boarder Mr. Enoch J. Drebber, of Cleveland?’ I asked.