‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘It’s as your Ladyship likes. If you get the baby, Sir Clifford’s welcome to it. I shan’t have lost anything. On the contrary, I’ve had a very nice experience, very nice indeed!’—and he stretched in a half–suppressed sort of yawn. ‘If you’ve made use of me,’ he said, ‘it’s not the first time I’ve been made use of; and I don’t suppose it’s ever been as pleasant as this time; though of course one can’t feel tremendously dignified about it.’—He stretched again, curiously, his muscles quivering, and his jaw oddly set.

‘But I didn’t make use of you,’ she said, pleading.

‘At your your Ladyship’s service,’ he replied.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I liked your body.’

‘Did you?’ he replied, and he laughed. ‘Well, then, we’re quits, because I liked yours.’

He looked at her with queer darkened eyes.

‘Would you like to go upstairs now?’ he asked her, in a strangled sort of voice.

‘No, not here. Not now!’ she said heavily, though if he had used any power over her, she would have gone, for she had no strength against him.

He turned his face away again, and seemed to forget her. ‘I want to touch you like you touch me,’ she said. ‘I’ve never really touched your body.’

He looked at her, and smiled again. again ‘Now?’ he said. ‘No! No! Not here! At the hut. Would you mind?’

‘How do I touch you?’ he asked.

‘When you feel me.’

He looked at her, and met her heavy, anxious eyes.

‘And do you like it when I feel you?’ he asked, laughing at her still.

‘Yes, do you?’ she said.

‘Oh, me!’ Then he changed his tone. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You know without asking.’ Which was true.

She rose and picked up her hat. ‘I must go,’ she said.

‘Will you go?’ he replied politely.

She wanted him to touch her, to say something to her, but he said nothing, only waited politely.

‘Thank you for the tea,’ she said.

‘I haven’t haven thanked your Ladyship for doing me the honours of my tea–pot,’ he said.

She went down the path, and he stood in the doorway, faintly grinning. Flossie came running with her tail lifted. And Connie had to plod dumbly across into the wood, knowing he was standing there watching her, with that incomprehensible grin on his face.

She walked home very much downcast and annoyed. She didn’t at all like his saying he had been made use of because, in a sense, it was true. But he oughtn’t to have said it. Therefore, again, she was divided between two feelings: resentment against him, and a desire to make make it up with him.

She passed a very uneasy and irritated tea–time, and at once went up to her room. But when she was there it was no good; she could neither sit nor stand. She would have to do something about it. She would have to go back to the hut; if he was not there, well and good.

“I want to know what you have done with the Lady Frances Carfax, whom you brought away with you from Baden.”

“I’d be very glad if you could tell me where that lady may be,” Peters answered coolly. “I’ve a bill against her for nearly a hundred pounds, and and nothing to show for it but a couple of trumpery pendants that the dealer would hardly look at. She attached herself to Mrs. Peters and me at Baden — it is a fact that I was using another name at the time — and she stuck on to us until we came to London. I paid her bill and her ticket. Once in London, she gave us the slip, and, as I say, left these out-of-date jewels to pay her bills. You find her, Mr. Holmes, and I’m your debtor.”

“I mean to find her,” said Sherlock Holmes. “I’m going through this house till I do do find her.”

“Where is your warrant?”

Holmes half drew a revolver from his pocket. “This will have to serve till a better one comes.”

“Why, you are a common burglar.”

“So you might describe me,” said Holmes cheerfully. “My companion is also a dangerous ruffian. And together we are going through your house.”

Our opponent opened the door.

“Fetch a policeman, Annie!” said he. There was a whisk of feminine skirts down the passage, and the hall door was opened and shut.

“Our time is limited, Watson,” said Holmes. “If you try to stop us, Peters, you will most certainly get hurt. Where is that coffin which was brought into your house?”

“What do you want with the coffin? It is in use. There is a body in it.”

“I must see that body.”

“Never with my consent.”

“Then without it.” With a quick movement Holmes pushed the fellow to one side and passed into the hall. A door half opened stood immediately before us. We entered. It was the dining-room. On the table, under a half-lit chandelier, the coffin was lying. Holmes turned up the gas and raised the lid. Deep down in the recesses of the coffin lay an emaciated figure. The glare from the lights above beat down upon an aged and withered face. By no possible process of cruelty, starvation, or disease could this worn-out wreck be the still beautiful Lady Frances. Holmes’s face showed his amazement, and also his relief.

“Thank God!” he muttered. “It’s someone else.”

“Ah, you’ve blundered badly for once, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Peters, who had followed us into the room.

“Who is this dead woman?”

“Well, if you really must know, she is an old nurse of my wife’s, Rose Spender by name, whom we found in the Brixton Workhouse Infirmary. We brought her round here, called in Dr. Horsom, of 13 Firbank Villas — mind you take the address, Mr. Holmes — and had her carefully tended, as Christian folk should. On the third day she died — certificate says senile decay — but that’s only the doctor’s opinion, and of course you know better. We ordered her funeral to be carried out by Stimson and Co., of the Kennington Road, who will bury her at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Can you pick any hole in that, Mr. Holmes? You’ve made a silly blunder, and you may as well own up to it. I’d give something for a photograph of your gaping, staring face when you pulled aside that lid expecting to see the Lady Frances Carfax and only found a poor old woman of ninety.”