‘Well I’m damned! Poor Duncan! And what’s he going to get out of it?’

‘I don’t know. But he might rather like it, even.’

‘He might, might he? Well, he’s a funny man if he does. Why, you’ve never even had an affair with him, have you?’

‘No! But he doesn’t really want it. He only loves me to be near him, but not to touch him.’

‘My God, what a generation!’

‘He would like me most of all to be a model for him to paint from. Only I never wanted to.’

‘God help him! But he looks down–trodden enough for anything.’

‘Still, you wouldn’t mind so much the talk about him?’

‘My God, Connie, all the bloody contriving!’

‘I know! It’s sickening! But what can I do?’

‘Contriving, conniving; conniving, contriving! Makes a man think he’s lived too long.’

‘Come, Father, if you haven’t done a good deal of contriving and conniving in your time, you may talk.’

‘But it was different, I assure you.’

‘It’s ALWAYS different.’

Hilda arrived, also furious when she heard of the new developments. And she also simply could not stand the thought of a public scandal about her sister and a game–keeper. Too, too humiliating!

‘Why should we not just disappear, separately, to British Columbia, and have no scandal?’ said Connie.

But that was no good. The scandal would come out just the same. And if Connie was going with the man, she’d better be able able to marry him. This was Hilda’s opinion. Sir Malcolm wasn’t sure. The affair might still blow over.

‘But will you see him, Father?’

Poor Sir Malcolm! he was by no means keen on it. And poor Mellors, he was still less keen. Yet the meeting took place: a lunch in a private room at the club, the two men alone, looking one another up and down.

Sir Malcolm drank a fair amount of whisky, Mellors also drank. And they talked all the while about India, on which the young man was well informed.

This lasted during the meal. Only when coffee was served, and the waiter had gone, Sir Malcolm lit a cigar and said, heartily:

‘Well, young man, and what about my daughter?’

The grin flickered on Mellors’ face.

‘Well, Sir, and what about her?’

‘You’ve got a baby in her all right.’

‘I have that honour!’ grinned Mellors.

‘Honour, by God!’ Sir Malcolm gave a little squirting laugh, and became Scotch and lewd. ‘Honour! How was the going, eh? Good, my boy, what?’

‘Good!’

‘I’ll bet it was! Ha–ha! My daughter, chip of the old block, what! I never went back on a good bit of fucking, myself. Though her mother, oh, holy saints!’ He rolled his eyes to heaven. ‘But you warmed her up, oh, you warmed her up, I can see that. Ha–ha! My blood in her! You set fire to her haystack all right. Ha–ha–ha! I was jolly glad of it, I can tell you. She needed it. Oh, she’s a nice girl, she’s a nice girl, and I knew she’d be good going, if only some damned man would set her stack on fire! Ha–ha–ha! A game–keeper, eh, my boy! Bloody good poacher, if you ask me. Ha–ha! But now, look here, speaking seriously, what are we going to do about it? Speaking seriously, you know!’

“All would now have been well for them had it not been for my knowledge of what they had done. I have no doubt that there were times when my life hung in the balance. I was confined to my room, terrorized by the most horrible threats, cruelly ill-used to break my spirit — see this stab on my shoulder and the bruises from end to end of my arms — and a gag was thrust into my mouth on the one occasion when I tried to call from the window. For five days this cruel imprisonment continued, with hardly enough food to hold body and soul together. This afternoon a good lunch was brought me, but the moment after I took it I knew that I had been drugged. In a sort of dream I remember being half-led, half-carried to the carriage; in the same state I was conveyed to the train. Only then, when the wheels were almost moving, did I suddenly realize that my liberty lay in my own hands. I sprang out, they tried to drag me back, and had it not been for the help of this good man, who led me to the cab, I should never have broken away. Now, thank God, I am beyond their power forever.”

We had all listened intently to this remarkable statement. It was Holmes who broke the silence.

“Our difficulties are not over,” he remarked, shaking his head. “Our police work ends, but our legal work begins.”

“Exactly,” said I. “A plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of self-defence. There may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it is only on this one that they can be tried.”

“Come, come,” said Baynes cheerily, “I think better of the law than that. Self-defence is one thing. To entice a man in cold blood with the object of murdering him is another, whatever danger you may fear from him. No, no, we shall all be justified when we see the tenants of High Gable at the next Guildford Assizes.”

It is a matter of history, however, that a little time was still to elapse before the Tiger of San Pedro should meet with his deserts. Wily and bold, he and his companion threw their pursuer off their track by entering a lodging-house in Edmonton Street and leaving by the back-gate into Curzon Square. From that day they were seen no more in England. Some six months afterwards the Marquess of Montalva and Signor Rulli, his secretary, were both murdered in their rooms at the Hotel Escurial at Madrid. The crime was ascribed to Nihilism, and the murderers were never arrested. Inspector Baynes visited us at Baker Street with a printed description of the dark face of the secretary, and of the masterful features, the magnetic black eyes, and the tufted brows of his master. We could not doubt that justice, if belated, had come at last.

“A chaotic case, my dear Watson,” said Holmes over an evening pipe. “It will not be possible for you to present it in that compact form which is dear to your heart. It covers two continents, concerns two groups of mysterious persons, and is further complicated by the highly respectable presence of our friend, Scott Eccles, whose inclusion shows me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming mind and a well-developed instinct of self-preservation. It is remarkable only for the fact that amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our worthy collaborator, the inspector, have kept our close hold on the essentials and so been guided along the crooked and winding path. Is there any point which is not quite clear to you?”