“I cannot explain it, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “I have not shut an eye since the tragedy, thinking, thinking, thinking, night and day, what the true meaning of it can be. Arthur was the most single-minded, chivalrous, patriotic man upon earth. He would have cut his right hand off before he would sell a State secret confided to his keeping. It is absurd, impossible, preposterous to anyone who knew him.”

“But the facts, Miss Westbury?”

“Yes, yes I admit I cannot explain them.”

“Was he in any want of money?”

“No; his needs were very simple and his salary ample. He had saved a few hundreds, and we were to marry at the New Year.”

“No signs of any mental excitement? Come, Miss Westbury, be absolutely frank with us.”

The quick eye of my companion had noted some change in her manner. She coloured and hesitated.

“Yes,” she said at last, “I had a feeling that there was something on his mind.”

“For long?”

“Only for the last week or so. He was thoughtful and worried. Once I pressed him about it. He admitted that there was something, and that it was concerned with his official life. ‘It is too serious for me to speak about, even to you,’ said he. I could get nothing more.”

Holmes looked grave.

“Go on, Miss Westbury. Even if it seems to tell against him, go on. We cannot say what what it may lead to.”

“Indeed, I have nothing more to tell. Once or twice it seemed to me that he was on the point of telling me something. He spoke one evening of the importance of the secret, and I have some recollection that he said that no doubt foreign spies would pay a great deal to have it.”

My friend’s face grew graver still.

“Anything else?”

“He said that we were slack about such matters — that it would be easy for a traitor to get the plans.”

“Was it only recently that he made such remarks?”

“Yes, quite recently.”

“Now tell us of that last evening.”

“We were to go to the theatre. The fog was so thick that a cab was useless. We walked, and our way took us close to the office. Suddenly he darted away into the fog.”

“Without a word?”

“He gave an exclamation; that was all. I waited but he never returned. Then I walked home. Next morning, after the office opened, they came to inquire. About twelve o’clock we heard the terrible news. Oh, Mr. Holmes, if you could only, only save his honour! It was so much to him.”

Holmes shook his head sadly.

“Come, Watson,” said he, “our ways lie elsewhere. Our next station must be the office from which the papers were taken.

“It was black enough before against this young man, but our inquiries make it blacker,” he remarked as the cab lumbered off. “His coming marriage gives a motive for the crime. He naturally wanted money. The idea was in his head, since he spoke about it. He nearly made the girl an accomplice in the treason by telling her his plans. It is all very bad.”

And again, there was the wage–squabble. Having lived among the owning classes, he knew the utter futility of expecting any solution of the wage–squabble. There was no solution, short of death. The only thing was not to care, not to care about the wages.

Yet, if you were poor and wretched you HAD to care. Anyhow, it was becoming the only thing they did care about. The CARE about money was like a great cancer, eating away the individuals of all classes. He refused to CARE about money.

And what then? What did life offer apart from the care of money? Nothing.

Yet he could live alone, in the wan satisfaction of being alone, and raise pheasants to be shot ultimately by fat men after breakfast. It was futility, futility to the NTH power.

But why care, why bother? And he had not cared nor bothered till now, when this woman had come into his life. He was nearly ten years older than she. And he was a thousand years older in experience, starting from the bottom. The connexion between them was growing closer. He could see the day when it would clinch up and they would have to make a life together. ‘For the bonds of love are ill to loose!’

And what then? What then? Must he start again, with nothing to start on? Must he entangle this woman? Must he have the horrible broil with her lame husband? And also some sort of horrible broil with his own brutal wife, who hated him? Misery! Lots of misery! And he was no longer young and merely buoyant. Neither was he the insouciant sort. Every bitterness and every ugliness would hurt him: and the woman!

But even if they got clear of Sir Clifford and of his own wife, even if they got clear, what were they going to do? What was he, himself going to do? What was he going to do with his life? For he must do something. He couldn’t be a mere hanger–on, on her money and his own very small pension.

It was the insoluble. He could only think of going to America, to try a new air. He disbelieved in the dollar utterly. But perhaps, perhaps there was something else.

He could not rest nor even go to bed. After sitting in a stupor of bitter thoughts until midnight, he got suddenly from his chair and reached for his coat and gun.

‘Come on, lass,’ he said to the dog. ‘We’re best outside.’

It was a starry night, but moonless. He went on a slow, scrupulous, soft–stepping and stealthy round. The only thing he had to contend with was the colliers setting snares for rabbits, particularly the Stacks Gate colliers, on the Marehay side. But it was breeding season, and even colliers respected it a little. Nevertheless the stealthy beating of the round in search of poachers soothed his nerves and took his mind off his thoughts.

But when he had done his slow, cautious beating of his bounds—it was nearly a five–mile walk—he was tired. He went to the top of the knoll and looked out. There was no sound save the noise, the faint shuffling noise from Stacks Gate colliery, that never ceased working: and there were hardly any lights, save the brilliant electric rows at the works. The world lay darkly and fumily sleeping. It was half past two. But even in its sleep it was an uneasy, cruel world, stirring with the noise of a train or some great lorry on the road, and flashing with some rosy lightning flash from the furnaces. It was a world of iron and coal, the cruelty of iron and the smoke of coal, and the endless, endless greed that drove it all. Only greed, greed stirring in its sleep.