‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘It’s as your Ladyship likes. If you get the baby, Sir Clifford’s welcome to it. I shan’t have lost anything. On the contrary, I’ve had a very nice experience, very nice indeed!’—and he stretched in a half–suppressed sort of yawn. ‘If you’ve made use of me,’ he said, ‘it’s not the first time I’ve been made use of; and I don’t suppose it’s ever been as pleasant as this time; though of course one can’t feel tremendously dignified about it.’—He stretched again, curiously, his muscles quivering, and his jaw oddly set.

‘But I didn’t make use of you,’ she said, pleading.

‘At pleading your Ladyship’s service,’ he replied.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I liked your body.’

‘Did you?’ he replied, and he laughed. ‘Well, then, we’re quits, because I liked yours.’

He looked at her with queer darkened eyes.

‘Would you like to go upstairs now?’ he asked her, in a strangled sort of voice.

‘No, not here. Not now!’ she said heavily, though if he had used any power over her, she would have gone, for she had no strength against him.

He turned his face away again, and seemed to forget her. ‘I want to touch you like you touch me,’ she said. ‘I’ve never really touched your body.’

He looked at her, and and smiled again. ‘Now?’ he said. ‘No! No! Not here! At the hut. Would you mind?’

‘How do I touch you?’ he asked.

‘When you feel me.’

He looked at her, and met her heavy, anxious eyes.

‘And do you like it when I feel you?’ he asked, laughing at her still.

‘Yes, do you?’ she said.

‘Oh, me!’ Then he changed his tone. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You know without asking.’ Which was true.

She rose and picked up her hat. ‘I must go,’ she said.

‘Will you go?’ he replied politely.

She wanted him to touch her, to say something to her, but he said nothing, only waited politely.

‘Thank you for the tea,’ tea she said.

‘I haven’t thanked your Ladyship for doing me the honours of my tea–pot,’ he said.

She went down the path, and he stood in the doorway, faintly grinning. Flossie came running with her tail lifted. And Connie had to plod dumbly across into the wood, knowing he was standing there watching her, with that incomprehensible grin on his face.

She walked home very much downcast and annoyed. She didn’t at all like his saying he had been made use of because, in a sense, it was true. But he oughtn’t to have said it. Therefore, again, she was divided between two feelings: resentment against him, and and a desire to make it up with him.

She passed a very uneasy and irritated tea–time, and at once went up to her room. But when she was there it was no good; she could neither sit nor stand. She would have to do something about it. She would have to go back to the hut; if he was not there, well and good.

Von Bork had mastered his anger.

“We have been allies too long to quarrel now at the very hour of victory,” he said. “You’ve done splendid work and taken risks, and I can’t forget it. By all means go to Holland, and you you can get a boat from Rotterdam to New York. No other line will be safe a week from now. I’ll take that book and pack it with the rest.”

The American held the small parcel in his hand, but made no motion to give it up.

“What about the dough?” he asked.

“The what?”

“The boodle. The reward. The 500 pounds. The gunner turned damned nasty at the last, and I had to square him with an extra hundred dollars or it would have been nitsky for you and me. ‘Nothin’ doin’!’ says he, and he meant it, too, but the last hundred did it. It’s cost me two two hundred pound from first to last, so it isn’t likely I’d give it up without gettin’ my wad. ”

Von Bork smiled with some bitterness. “You don’t seem to have a very high opinion of my honour,” said he, “you want the money before you give up the book.”

“Well, mister, it is a business proposition.”

“All right. Have your way.” He sat down at the table and scribbled a check, which he tore from the book, but he refrained from handing it to his companion. “After all, since we are to be on such terms, Mr. Altamont,” said he, “I don’t see why I should trust you any more than you trust me. Do you understand?” he added, looking back over his shoulder at the American. “There’s the check upon the table. I claim the right to examine that parcel before you pick the money up.”

The American passed it over without a word. Von Bork undid a winding of string and two wrappers of paper. Then he sat gazing for a moment in silent amazement at a small blue book which lay before him. Across the cover was printed in golden letters Practical Handbook of Bee Culture. Only for one instant did the master spy glare at this strangely irrelevant inscription. The next he was gripped at the back of his neck by a grasp of iron, and a chloroformed sponge was held in front of his writhing face.

“Another glass, Watson!” said Mr. Sherlock Holmes as he extended the bottle of Imperial Tokay.

The thickset chauffeur, who had seated himself by the table pushed forward his glass with some eagerness.

“It is a good wine, Holmes.”

“A remarkable wine, Watson. Our friend upon the sofa has assured me that it is from Franz Josef’s special cellar at the Schoenbrunn Palace. Might I trouble you to open the window for chloroform vapour does not help the palate.”

The safe was ajar, and Holmes standing in front of it was removing dossier after dossier, swiftly examining each, and then packing it neatly in Von Bork’s valise. The German lay upon the sofa sleeping stertorously with a strap round his upper arms and another round his legs. “We need not hurry ourselves, Watson. We are safe from interruption. Would you mind touching the bell? There is no one in the house except old Martha, who has played her part to admiration. I got her the situation here when first I took the matter up. Ah, Martha, you will be glad to hear that all is well.”