I asked him fit would be easy for him to find another job. He said: ‘If you’re hintin’ that you’d like to shunt me out of this job, it’d be easy as wink.’ So he made no trouble at all about leaving at the end of next week, and apparently is willing to initiate a young fellow, Joe Chambers, into as many mysteries of the craft as possible. I told him I would give him a month’s wages extra, when he left. He said he’d rather I kept my money, as I’d no occasion to ease my conscience. I asked him what he meant, and he said: ‘You don’t owe me nothing extra, Sir Clifford, so don’t pay me nothing extra. If you think you see my shirt hanging out, just tell me.’

Well, there is the end of it for the time being. The woman has gone away: we don’t know where to: but she is liable to arrest if she shows her face in Tevershall. And I heard she is mortally afraid of gaol, because she merits it so well. Mellors will depart on Saturday week, and the place will soon become normal again.

Meanwhile, my dear Connie, if you would enjoy to stay in Venice or in Switzerland till the beginning of August, I should be glad to think you were out of all this buzz of nastiness, which will have have died quite away by the end of the month.

So you see, we arc deep–sea monsters, and when the lobster walks on mud, he stirs it up for everybody. We must perforce take it philosophically.

The irritation, and the lack of any sympathy in any direction, of Clifford’s letter, had a bad effect on Connie. But she understood it better when she received the following from Mellors:

The cat is out of the bag, along with various other pussies. You have heard that my wife Bertha came back to my unloving arms, and took up her abode in the cottage: where, to speak disrespectfully, she smelled a rat, in the shape of a little bottle of Coty. Other evidence she did not find, at least for some days, when she began to howl about the burnt photograph. She noticed the glass and the back–board in the square bedroom. Unfortunately, on the back–board somebody had scribbled little sketches, and the initials, several times repeated: C. S. R. This, however, afforded no clue until she broke into the hut, and found one of your books, an autobiography of the actress Judith, with your name, Constance Stewart Reid, on the front page. After this, for some days she went round loudly saying that my paramour was no less a person than Lady Chatterley herself. The news came at last to the rector, Mr Burroughs, and to Sir Clifford. They then proceeded to take legal steps against my liege lady, who for her part disappeared, having always had a mortal fear of the police.

Sir Clifford asked to see me, so I went to him. He talked around things and seemed annoyed with me. Then he asked if I knew that even her ladyship’s name had been mentioned. I said I never listened to scandal, and was surprised to hear this bit from Sir Clifford himself. He said, of course it was a great insult, and I told him there was Queen Mary on a calendar in the scullery, no doubt because Her Majesty formed part of my harem. But he didn’t appreciate the sarcasm. He as good as told me I was a disreputable character also walked about with my breeches’ buttons undone, and I as good as told him he’d nothing to unbutton anyhow, so he gave me the sack, and I leave on Saturday week, and the place thereof shall know me no more.

“I did not! I did not! Before God I swear that I did not!” cried our wretched prisoner.

“Tell us, then, how Cadogan West met his end before you laid him upon the roof of a railway carriage.”

“I will. I swear to you that I will. I did the rest. I confess it. It was just as you say. A Stock Exchange debt had to be paid. I needed the money badly. Oberstein offered me five thousand. It was to save myself from ruin. But as to murder, I am as innocent as you.”

“What happened, then?”

“He had his suspicions before, and he followed me as you describe. I never knew it until I was at the very door. It was thick fog, and one could not see three yards. I had given two taps and Oberstein had come to the door. The young man rushed up and demanded to know what we were about to do with the papers. Oberstein had a short life-preserver. He always carried it with him. As West forced his way after us into the house Oberstein struck him on the head. The blow was a fatal one. He was dead within five minutes. There he lay in the hall, and we were at our wit’s end what to do. Then Oberstein had this idea about the trains which halted under his back window. But first he examined the papers which I had brought. He said that three of them were essential, and that he must keep them. ‘You cannot keep them,’ said I. ‘There will be a dreadful row at Woolwich if they are not returned.’ ‘I must keep them,’ said he, ‘for they are so technical that it is impossible in the time to make copies.’ ‘Then they must all go back together tonight,’ said I. He thought for a little, and then he cried out that he had it. ‘Three I will keep,’ said he. ‘The others we will stuff into the pocket of this young man. When he is found the whole business will assuredly be put to his account. I could see no other way out of it, so we did as he suggested. We waited half an hour at the window before a train stopped. It was so thick that nothing could be seen, and we had no difficulty in lowering West’s body on to the train. That was the end of the matter so far as I was concerned.”

“And your brother?”

“He said nothing, but he had caught me once with his keys, and I think that he suspected. I read in his eyes that he suspected. As you know, he never held up his head again.”

There was silence in the room. It was broken by Mycroft Holmes.

“Can you not make reparation? It would ease your conscience, and possibly your punishment.”

“What reparation can I make?”

“Where is Oberstein with the papers?”

“I do not know.”

“Did he give you no address?”

“He said that letters to the Hotel du Louvre, Paris, would eventually reach him.”

“Then reparation is still within your power,” said Sherlock Holmes.

“I will do anything I can. I owe this fellow no particular good-will. He has been my ruin and my downfall.”