“I shall never do that,” I answered; “you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.”

My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.

“I’ll tell you one other thing,” he said. “Patent-leathers and Square-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway together as friendly as possible — arm-in-arm, in all probability. When they got inside, they walked up and down the room — or rather, Patent-leathers stood still while Square-toes walked up and down. I could read all that in the dust; and I could read that as he walked he grew more and more excited. That is shown by the increased length of his strides. He was talking all the while, and working himself up, no doubt, into a fury. Then the tragedy occurred. I’ve told you all I know myself now, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have a good working basis, however, on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want to go to Halle’s concert to hear Norman Neruda this afternoon.”

This conversation had occurred while our cab had been threading its way through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary byways. byways In the dingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly came to a stand. “That’s Audley Court in there,” he said, pointing to a narrow slit in the line of dead-coloured brick. “You’ll find me here when you come back.”

Audley Court was not an attractive locality. The narrow passage led us into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid dwellings. We picked our way among groups of dirty children, and through lines of discoloured linen, until we came to Number 46, the door of which was decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name Rance was engraved. On inquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we were shown into a little front parlour to await his coming.

He appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being disturbed in his slumbers. “I made my report at the office,” he said.

Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with it pensively. “We thought that we should like to hear it all from your own lips,” he said.

“I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can,” the constable answered, with his eyes upon the little golden disc.

“Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred.”

Rance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows as though determined not to omit anything in his narrative.

“I’ll tell it ye from the beginning,” he said. “My time is from ten at night to six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the White Hart; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one o’clock it began to rain, and I met Harry Murcher — him who has the Holland Grove beat — and we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street a-talkin’. Presently — maybe about two or a little after — I thought I would take a look round and see that all was right down the Brixton Road. It was precious dirty and lonely. Not a soul did I meet all the way down, though a cab or two went past me. I was a-strollin’ down, thinkin’ between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot would be, when suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of that same house. Now, I knew that them two houses in Lauriston Gardens was empty on account of him that owns them who won’t have the drains seed to, though the very last tenant what lived in one of them died o’ typhoid fever. I was knocked all in a heap, therefore, at seeing a light in the window, and I suspected as something was wrong. When I got to the door —”

At last she slid to her father’s side.

‘Daddie—’ she said.

‘What, my precious?’

But she hung back, the tears almost coming to her eyes, in her sensitive confusion. Her father looked at her, and his heart ran hot with tenderness, an anguish of poignant love.

‘What do you want to say to me, my love?’

‘Daddie—!’ her eyes smiled laconically—‘isn’t it silly if I give Miss Brangwen some flowers when she comes?’

The sick man looked at the bright, knowing eyes of his child, and his heart burned with love.

‘No, darling, that’s not silly. It’s what they do to queens.’

This was not very reassuring to Winifred. She half suspected that queens in themselves were a silliness. Yet she so wanted her little romantic occasion.

‘Shall I then?’ she asked.

‘Give Miss Brangwen some flowers? Do, Birdie. Tell Wilson I say you are to have what you want.’

The child smiled a small, subtle, unconscious smile to herself, in anticipation of her way.

‘But I won’t get them till tomorrow,’ she said.

‘Not till tomorrow, Birdie. Give me a kiss then—’

Winifred silently kissed the sick man, and drifted out of the room. She again went the round of the green–houses and the conservatory, informing the gardener, in her high, peremptory, simple fashion, of what she wanted, telling him all the blooms she had selected.

‘What do you want these for?’ Wilson asked.

‘I want them,’ she said. She wished servants did not ask questions.

‘Ay, you’ve said as much. But what do you want them for, for decoration, or to send away, or what?’

‘I want them for a presentation bouquet.’

‘A presentation bouquet! Who’s coming then?—the Duchess of Portland?’

‘No.’

‘Oh, not her? Well you’ll have a rare poppy–show if you put all the things you’ve mentioned into your bouquet.’

‘Yes, I want a rare poppy–show.’

‘You do! Then there’s no more to be said.’

The next day Winifred, in a dress of silvery velvet, and holding a gaudy bunch of flowers in her hand, waited with keen impatience in the schoolroom, looking down the drive for Gudrun’s arrival. It was a wet morning. Under her nose was the strange fragrance of hot–house flowers, the bunch was like a little fire to her, she seemed to have a strange new fire in her heart. This slight sense of romance stirred her like an intoxicant.

At last she saw Gudrun coming, and she ran downstairs to warn her father and Gerald. They, laughing at her anxiety and gravity, came with her into the hall. The man–servant came hastening to the door, and there he was, relieving Gudrun of her umbrella, and then of her raincoat. The welcoming party hung back till their visitor entered the hall.

Gudrun was flushed with the rain, her hair was blown in loose little curls, she was like a flower just opened in the rain, the heart of the blossom just newly visible, seeming to emit a warmth of retained sunshine. Gerald winced in spirit, seeing her so beautiful and unknown. She was wearing a soft blue dress, and her stockings were of dark red.