He looked at her, feeling her devil of a will.

‘Would it?’ he said in the normal English. ‘Would it? Would anything that was said between you and me be quite natural, unless you said you wished me to hell before your sister ever saw me again: and unless I said something almost as unpleasant back again? Would anything else be natural?’

‘Oh yes!’ said Hilda. ‘Just good manners would be quite natural.’

‘Second nature, so to speak!’ he said: then he began to laugh. ‘Nay,’ he said. ‘I’m weary o’ manners. Let me be!’

Hilda was frankly baffled and furiously annoyed. After all, he might show that he realized he was being honoured. Instead of which, with his play–acting and lordly airs, he seemed to think it was he who was conferring the honour. Just impudence! Poor misguided Connie, in the man’s clutches!

The three ate in silence. Hilda looked to see what his table–manners were like. She could not help realizing that he was instinctively much more delicate and well–bred than herself. She had a certain Scottish clumsiness. And moreover, he had all the quiet self–contained assurance of the English, no loose edges. It would be very difficult to get the better of him.

But neither would he get the better of her.

‘And do you you really think,’ she said, a little more humanly, ‘it’s worth the risk.’

‘Is what worth what risk?’

‘This escapade with my sister.’

He flickered his irritating grin.

‘Yo’ maun ax ‘er!’ Then he looked at Connie.

‘Tha comes o’ thine own accord, lass, doesn’t ter? It’s non me as forces thee?’

Connie looked at Hilda.

‘I wish you wouldn’t cavil, Hilda.’

‘Naturally I don’t want to. But someone has to think about things. You’ve got to have some sort of continuity in your life. You can’t just go making a mess.’

There was a moment’s pause.

‘Eh, continuity!’ he said. ‘An’ what by that? What continuity ave yer got i’ YOUR life? I thought you was gettin’ divorced. What continuity’s that? Continuity o’ yer own stubbornness. I can see that much. An’ what good’s it goin’ to do yer? You’ll be sick o’ yer continuity afore yer a fat sight older. A stubborn woman an er own self–will: ay, they make a fast continuity, they do. Thank heaven, it isn’t me as ‘as got th’ ‘andlin’ of yer!’

‘What right have you to speak like that to me?’ said Hilda.

‘Right! What right ha’ yo’ ter start harnessin’ other folks i’ your continuity? Leave folks to their own continuities.’

‘My dear man, do you think I am concerned with you?’ said Hilda softly.

‘Ay,’ he said. ‘Yo’ are. For it’s a force–put. Yo’ more or less my sister–in–law.’

“He has to take the tray in. Surely we could conceal ourselves and see him do it.”

The landlady thought for a moment.

“Well, sir, there’s the box-room opposite. I could arrange a looking-glass, maybe, and if you were behind the door —”

“Excellent!” said Holmes. “When does he lunch?”

“About one, sir.”

“Then Dr. Watson and I will come round in time. For the present, Mrs. Warren, good-bye.”

At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of Mrs. Warren’s house — a high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in Great Orme Street, a narrow thoroughfare at the northeast side of the British Museum. Standing as it does near the corner of the street it commands a view down Howe Street, with its more pretentious houses. Holmes pointed with a chuckle to one of these, a row of residential flats, which projected so that they could not fail to catch the eye.

“See, Watson!” said he. “‘High red house with stone facings.’ There is the signal station all right. We know the place, and we know the code; so surely our task should be simple. There’s a ‘to let’ card in that window. It is evidently an empty flat to which the confederate has access. Well, Mrs. Warren, what now?”

“I have it all ready for you. If you will both come up and leave your boots below on the landing, I’ll put you there now.”

It was an excellent hiding-place which she had arranged. The mirror was so placed that, seated in the dark, we could very plainly see the door opposite. We had hardly settled down in it, and Mrs. Warren left us, when a distant tinkle announced that our mysterious neighbour had rung. Presently the landlady appeared with the tray, laid it down upon a chair beside the closed door, and then, treading heavily, departed. Crouching together in the angle of the door, we kept our eyes fixed upon the mirror. Suddenly, as the landlady’s footsteps died away, there was the creak of a turning key, the handle revolved, and two thin hands darted out and lifted the tray from the chair. An instant later it was hurriedly replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a dark, beautiful, horrified face glaring at the narrow opening of the boxroom. Then the door crashed to, the key turned once more, and all was silence. Holmes twitched my sleeve, and together we stole down the stair.

“I will call again in the evening,” said he to the expectant landlady. “I think, Watson, we can discuss this business better in our own quarters.”

“My surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct,” said he, speaking from the depths of his easy-chair. “There has been a substitution of lodgers. What I did not foresee is that we should find a woman, and no ordinary woman, Watson.”

“She saw us.”

“Well, she saw something to alarm her. That is certain. The general sequence of events is pretty clear, is it not? A couple seek refuge in London from a very terrible and instant danger. The measure of that danger is the rigour of their precautions. The man, who has some work which he must do, desires to leave the woman in absolute safety while he does it. It is not an easy problem, but he solved it in an original fashion, and so effectively that her presence was not even known to the landlady who supplies her with food. The printed messages, as is now evident, were to prevent her sex being discovered by her writing. The man cannot come near the woman, or he will guide their enemies to her. Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he has recourse to the agony column of a paper. So far all is clear.”