The pleasant old lady had appeared in the doorway. She curtseyed with a smile to Mr. Holmes, but glanced with some apprehension at the figure upon the sofa.

“It is all right, Martha. He has not been hurt at all.”

“I am glad of that, Mr. Holmes. According to his lights he has been a kind master. He wanted me to go with his wife to Germany yesterday, but that would hardly have suited your plans, would it, sir?”

“No, indeed, Martha. So long as you were here I was easy in my mind. We waited some time for your signal to-night.”

“It was the secretary, sir.”

“I know. His car passed ours.”

“I thought he would never go. I knew that it would not suit your plans, sir, to find him here.”

“No, indeed. Well, it only meant that we waited half an hour or so until I saw your lamp go out and knew that the coast was clear. You can report to me to-morrow in London, Martha, at Claridge’s Hotel.”

“Very good, sir.”

“I suppose you have everything ready to leave.”

“Yes, sir. He posted seven letters to-day. I have the addresses as usual.”

“Very good, Martha. I will look into them to-morrow. Goodnight. These papers,” he continued as the old lady vanished, “are not of very great importance, for, of of course, the information which they represent has been sent off long ago to the German government. These are the originals which could not safely be got out of the country.”

“Then they are of no use.”

“I should not go so far as to say that, Watson. They will at least show our people what is known and what is not. I may say that a good many of these papers have come through me, and I need not add are thoroughly untrustworthy. It would brighten my declining years to see a German cruiser navigating the Solent according to the mine-field plans which I have furnished. But you, Watson” — he stopped his work and took his old friend by the shoulders — “I’ve hardly seen you in the light yet. How have the years used you? You look the same blithe boy as ever. ”

“I feel twenty years younger, Holmes. I have seldom felt so happy as when I got your wire asking me to meet you at Harwich with the car. But you, Holmes — you have changed very little — save for that horrible goatee.”

“These are the sacrifices one makes for one’s country, Watson,” said Holmes, pulling at his little tuft. “To-morrow it will be but a dreadful memory. With my hair cut and a few other superficial changes I shall no doubt reappear at Claridge’s tomorrow as I was before this American stunt — I beg your pardon, Watson, my well of English seems to be permanently defiled — before this American job came my way.”

“But you have retired, Holmes. We heard of you as living the life of a hermit among your bees and your books in a small farm upon the South Downs.”

“Exactly, Watson. Here is the fruit of my leisured ease, the magnum opus of my latter years!” He picked up the volume from the table and read out the whole title, Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen. “Alone I did it. Behold the fruit of pensive nights and laborious days when I watched the little working gangs as once I watched the criminal world of London.”

He stroked her tail with his hand, long and subtly taking in the curves and the globe–fullness.

‘Tha’s got such a nice tail on thee,’ he said, in the throaty caressive dialect. ‘Tha’s got the nicest arse of anybody. It’s the nicest, nicest woman’s arse as is! An’ ivery bit of it is woman, woman sure as nuts. Tha’rt not one o’ them button–arsed lasses as should be lads, are ter! Tha’s got a real soft sloping bottom on thee, as a man loves in ‘is guts. It’s a bottom as could hold the world up, it is!’

All the while he spoke he exquisitely stroked the rounded tail, till it seemed as if a slippery sort of fire came from it into his hands. And his finger–tips touched the two secret openings to her body, time after time, with a soft little brush of fire.

‘An’ if tha shits an’ if tha pisses, I’m glad. I don’t want a woman as couldna shit nor piss.’

Connie could not help a sudden snort of astonished laughter, but he went on unmoved.

‘Tha’rt real, tha art! Tha’art real, even a bit of a bitch. Here tha shits an’ here tha pisses: an’ I lay my hand on ‘em both an’ like thee for it. I like thee for it. Tha’s got a proper, woman’s arse, proud of itself. It’s none ashamed of itself this isna.’

He laid his hand close and firm over her secret places, in a kind of close greeting.

‘I like it,’ he said. ‘I like it! An’ if I only lived ten minutes, an’ stroked thy arse an’ got to know it, I should reckon I’d lived ONElife, see ter! Industrial system or not! Here’s one o’ my lifetimes.’

She turned round and climbed into his lap, clinging to him. ‘Kiss me!’ she whispered.

And she knew the thought of their separation was latent in both their minds, and at last she was sad.

She sat on his thighs, her head against his breast, and her ivory–gleaming legs loosely apart, the fire glowing unequally upon them. Sitting with his head dropped, he looked at the folds of her body in the fire–glow, and at the fleece of soft brown hair that hung down to a point between her open thighs. He reached to the table behind, and took up her bunch of flowers, still so wet that drops of rain fell on to her.

‘Flowers stops out of doors all weathers,’ he said. ‘They have no houses.’

‘Not even a hut!’ she murmured.

With quiet fingers he threaded a few forget–me–not flowers in the fine brown fleece of the mound of Venus.

‘There!’ he said. ‘There’s forget–me–nots in the right place!’

She looked down at the milky odd little flowers among the brown maiden–hair at the lower tip of her body.

‘Doesn’t it look pretty!’ she said.

‘Pretty as life,’ he replied.

And he stuck a pink campion–bud among the hair.

‘There! That’s me where you won’t forget me! That’s Moses in the bull–rushes.’