‘Probably,’ said Gerald.

Meanwhile Ursula was peeping under one of the cloths. There sat the canary in a corner, bunched and fluffed up for sleep.

‘How ridiculous!’ she cried. ‘It really thinks the night has come! How absurd! Really, how can one have any respect for a creature that is so easily taken in!’

‘Yes,’ sang Hermione, coming also to look. She put her hand on Ursula’s arm and chuckled a low laugh. ‘Yes, doesn’t he look comical?’ she chuckled. ‘Like a stupid husband.’

Then, with her hand still on Ursula’s arm, she drew her away, saying, in her mild sing–song:

‘How did you come here? We saw Gudrun too.’

‘I came to look at the pond,’ said Ursula, ‘and I found Mr Birkin there.’

‘Did you? This is quite a Brangwen land, isn’t it!’

‘I’m afraid I hoped so,’ said Ursula. ‘I ran here for refuge, when I saw you down the lake, just putting off.’

‘Did you! And now we’ve run you to earth.’

Hermione’s eyelids lifted with an uncanny movement, amused but overwrought. She had always her strange, rapt look, unnatural and irresponsible.

‘I was going on,’ said Ursula. ‘Mr Birkin wanted me to see the rooms. Isn’t it delightful to to live here? It is perfect.’

‘Yes,’ said Hermione, abstractedly. Then she turned right away from Ursula, ceased to know her existence.

‘How do you feel, Rupert?’ she sang in a new, affectionate tone, to Birkin.

‘Very well,’ he replied.

‘Were you quite comfortable?’ The curious, sinister, rapt look was on Hermione’s face, she shrugged her bosom in a convulsed movement, and seemed like one half in a trance.

‘Quite comfortable,’ he replied.

There was a long pause, whilst Hermione looked at him for a long time, from under her heavy, drugged eyelids.

‘And you think you’ll be happy here?’ she said at last.

‘I’m sure I shall.’

‘I’m sure I shall do anything for him as I can,’ said the labourer’s wife. ‘And I’m sure our master will; so I HOPE he’ll find himself comfortable.’

Hermione turned and looked at her slowly.

‘Thank you so much,’ she said, and then she turned completely away again. She recovered her position, and lifting her face towards him, and addressing him exclusively, she said:

‘Have you measured the rooms?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve been mending the punt.’

‘Shall we do it now?’ she said slowly, balanced and dispassionate.

‘Have you got a tape measure, Mrs Salmon?’ he said, turning to the woman.

‘Yes sir, I think I can find one,’ replied the woman, bustling immediately to a basket. ‘This is the only one I’ve got, if it will do.’

Hermione took it, though it was offered to him.

John Watson, M.D.

Our prisoner’s furious resistance did not apparently indicate any ferocity in his disposition towards ourselves, for on finding himself powerless, he smiled in an affable manner, and expressed his hopes that he had not hurt any of us in the scuffle. “I guess you’re going to take me to the police-station,” he remarked to Sherlock Holmes “My cab’s at the door. If you‘ll loose my legs I’ll walk down to it. I’m not so light to lift as I used to be.”

Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances, as if they thought this proposition rather a bold one; but Holmes at once took the prisoner at his word, and loosened the towel which we had bound round his ankles. He rose and stretched his legs, as though to assure himself that they were free once more. I remember that I thought to myself, as I eyed him, that I had seldom seen a more powerfully built man; and his dark, sunburned face bore an expression of determination and energy which was as formidable as his personal strength.

“If there’s a vacant place for a chief of the police, I reckon you are the man for it,” he said, gazing with undisguised admiration at my fellow-lodger. “The way you kept on my trail was a caution.”

“You had better come with me,” said Holmes to the two detectives.

“I can drive you,” said Lestrade.

“Good! and Gregson can come inside with me. You too, Doctor. You have taken an interest in the case, and may as well stick to us.”

I assented gladly, and we all descended together. Our prisoner made no attempt at escape, but stepped calmly into the cab which had been his, and we followed him. Lestrade mounted the box, whipped up the horse, and brought us in a very short time to our destination. We were ushered into a small chamber, where a police inspector noted down our prisoner’s name and the names of the men with whose murder he had been charged. The official was a white-faced, unemotional man, who went through his duties in a dull, mechanical way. “The prisoner will be put before the magistrates in the course of the week,” he said; “in the meantime, Mr. Jefferson Hope, have you anything that you wish to say? I must warn you that your words will be taken down, and may be used against you.”

“I’ve got a good deal to say,” our prisoner said slowly. “I want to tell you gentlemen all about it.”

“Hadn’t you better reserve that for your trial?” asked the inspector.

“I may never be tried,” he answered. “You needn’t look startled. It isn’t suicide I am thinking of. Are you a doctor?” He turned his fierce dark eyes upon me as he asked this last question.

“Yes, I am,” I answered.

“Then put your hand here,” he said, with a smile, motioning with his manacled wrists towards his chest.

I did so; and became at once conscious of an extraordinary throbbing and commotion which was going on inside. The walls of his chest seemed to thrill and quiver as a frail building would do inside when some powerful engine was at work. In the silence of the room I could hear a dull humming and buzzing noise which proceeded from the same source.