“Well, Watson,” said he, “a very pretty hash you have made of it! I rather think you had better come back with me to London by the night express.”

An hour afterwards, Sherlock Holmes, in his usual garb and style, was seated in my private room at the hotel. His explanation of his sudden and opportune appearance was simplicity itself, for, finding that he could get away from London, he determined to head me off at the next obvious point of my travels. In the disguise of a workingman he had sat in the cabaret waiting for my appearance.

“And a singularly consistent investigation you have made, my dear Watson,” said he. “I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder which you have omitted. The total effect of your proceeding has been to give the alarm everywhere and yet to discover nothing.”

“Perhaps you would have done no better,” I answered bitterly.

“There is no ‘perhaps’ about it. I have done better. Here is the Hon. Philip Green, who is a fellow-lodger with you in this hotel, and we may find him the starting-point for a more successful investigation.”

A card had come up on a salver, and it was followed by the same bearded ruffian who had attacked me in the street. He started when he he saw me.

“What is this, Mr. Holmes?” he asked. “I had your note and I have come. But what has this man to do with the matter?”

“This is my old friend and associate, Dr. Watson, who is helping us in this affair.”

The stranger held out a huge, sunburned hand, with a few words of apology.

“I hope I didn’t harm you. When you accused me of hurting her I lost my grip of myself. Indeed, I’m not responsible in these days. My nerves are like live wires. But this situation is beyond me. What I want to know, in the first place, Mr. Holmes, is, how in the world you came to hear of my existence at all.”

“I am in touch with Miss Dobney, Lady Frances’s governess.”

“Old Susan Dobney with the mob cap! I remember her well.”

“And she remembers you. It was in the days before — before you found it better to go to South Africa.”

“Ah, I see you know my whole story. I need hide nothing from you. I swear to you, Mr. Holmes, that there never was in this world a man who loved a woman with a more wholehearted love than I had for Frances. I was a wild youngster, I know — not worse than others of my class. But her mind was pure as snow. She could not bear a shadow of coarseness. So, when she came to hear of things that I had done, she would have no more to say to me. And yet she loved me — that is the wonder of it! — loved me well enough to remain single all her sainted days just for my sake alone. When the years had passed and I had made my money at Barberton I thought perhaps I could seek her out and soften her. I had heard that she was still unmarried. I found her at Lausanne and tried all I knew. She weakened, I think, but her will was strong, and when next I called she had left the town. I traced her to Baden, and then after a time heard that her maid was here. I’m a rough fellow, fresh from a rough life, and when Dr. Watson spoke to me as he did I lost hold of myself for a moment. But for God’s sake tell me what has become of the Lady Frances.”

‘Do!’ he said. ‘Can I make you tea or anything, or will you drink a glass of beer? It’s moderately cool.’

‘Beer!’ said Connie.

‘Beer for me, please!’ said Hilda, with a mock sort of shyness. He looked at her and blinked.

He took a blue jug and tramped to the scullery. When he came back with the beer, his face had changed again.

Connie sat down by the door, and Hilda sat in his seat, with the back to the wall, against the window corner.

‘That is his chair,’ said Connie softly.’ And Hilda rose as if it had burnt her.

‘Sit yer still, sit yer still! Ta’e ony cheer as yo’n a mind to, none of us is th’ big bear,’ he said, with complete equanimity.

And he brought Hilda a glass, and poured her beer first from the blue jug.

‘As for cigarettes,’ he said, ‘I’ve got none, but ‘appen you’ve got your own. I dunna smoke, mysen. Shall y’ eat summat?’ He turned direct to Connie. ‘Shall t’eat a smite o’ summat, if I bring it thee? Tha can usually do wi’ a bite.’ He spoke the vernacular with a curious calm assurance, as if he were the landlord of the Inn.

‘What is there?’ asked Connie, flushing.

‘Boiled ham, cheese, pickled wa’nuts, if yer like.—Nowt much.’

‘Yes,’ said Connie. ‘Won’t you, Hilda?’

Hilda looked up at him.

‘Why do you speak Yorkshire?’ she said softly.

‘That! That’s non Yorkshire, that’s Derby.’

He looked back at her with that faint, distant grin.

‘Derby, then! Why do you speak Derby? You spoke natural English at first.’

‘Did Ah though? An’ canna Ah change if Ah’m a mind to ‘t? Nay, nay, let me talk Derby if it suits me. If yo’n nowt against it.’

‘It sounds a little affected,’ said Hilda.

‘Ay, ‘appen so! An’ up i’ Tevershall yo’d sound affected.’ He looked again at her, with a queer calculating distance, along his cheek–bone: as if to say: Yi, an’ who are you?

He tramped away to the pantry for the food.

The sisters sat in silence. He brought another plate, and knife and fork. The he said:

‘An’ if it’s the same to you, I s’ll ta’e my coat off like I allers do.’

And he took off his coat, and hung it on the peg, then sat down to table in his shirt–sleeves: a shirt of thin, cream–coloured flannel.

‘‘Elp yerselves!’ he said. ‘‘Elp yerselves! Dunna wait f’r axin’!’ He cut the bread, then sat motionless. Hilda felt, as Connie once used to, his power of silence and distance. She saw his smallish, sensitive, loose hand on the table. He was no simple working man, not he: he was acting! acting!

‘Still!’ she said, as she took a little cheese. ‘It would be more natural if you spoke to us in normal English, not in vernacular.’