‘What are they?’ she asked.

‘Sort of petunia, I suppose,’ he answered. ‘I don’t really know them.’

‘They are quite strangers to me,’ she said.

They stood together in a false intimacy, a nervous contact. And he was in love with her.

She was aware of Mademoiselle standing near, like a little French beetle, observant and calculating. She moved away with Winifred, saying they would go to find Bismarck.

Gerald watched them go, looking all the while at the soft, full, still body of Gudrun, in its silky cashmere. How silky and rich and soft her body must be. An excess of appreciation came over his mind, she was the all–desirable, the all–beautiful. He wanted only to come to her, nothing more. He was only this, this being that should come to her, and be given to her.

At the same time he was finely and acutely aware of Mademoiselle’s neat, brittle finality of form. She was like some elegant beetle with thin ankles, perched on her high heels, her glossy black dress perfectly correct, her dark hair done high and admirably. How repulsive her completeness and her finality was! He loathed her.

Yet he did admire her. She was perfectly correct. And it did rather annoy him, that Gudrun came dressed in startling colours, like a macaw, when the family was in mourning. Like a macaw she was! was He watched the lingering way she took her feet from the ground. And her ankles were pale yellow, and her dress a deep blue. Yet it pleased him. It pleased him very much. He felt the challenge in her very attire–she challenged the whole world. And he smiled as to the note of a trumpet.

Gudrun and Winifred went through the house to the back, where were the stables and the out–buildings. Everywhere was still and deserted. Mr Crich had gone out for a short drive, the stableman had just led round Gerald’s horse. The two girls went to the hutch that stood in a corner, and looked at the great black–and–white rabbit.

‘Isn’t he beautiful! Oh, do look at him listening! Doesn’t he look silly!’ she laughed quickly, then added ‘Oh, do let’s do him listening, do let us, he listens with so much of himself;–don’t you darling Bismarck?’

‘Can we take him out?’ said Gudrun.

‘He’s very strong. He really is extremely strong.’ She looked at Gudrun, her head on one side, in odd calculating mistrust.

‘But we’ll try, shall we?’

‘Yes, if you like. But he’s a fearful kicker!’

They took the key to unlock the door. The rabbit exploded in a wild rush round the hutch.

‘He scratches most awfully sometimes,’ cried Winifred in excitement. ‘Oh do look at him, isn’t he wonderful!’ The rabbit tore round the hutch in a hurry. ‘Bismarck!’ cried the child, in rousing excitement. ‘How DREADFUL you are! You are beastly.’ Winifred looked up at Gudrun with some misgiving in her wild excitement. Gudrun smiled sardonically with her mouth. Winifred made a strange crooning noise of unaccountable excitement. ‘Now he’s still!’ she cried, seeing the rabbit settled down in a far corner of the hutch. ‘Shall we take him now?’ she whispered excitedly, mysteriously, looking up at Gudrun and edging very close. ‘Shall we get him now?–’ she chuckled wickedly to herself.

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.