‘Oh, Fred can carry it. Make him do what he can for the dear old ‘ome.’

‘Mike use of’im,’ said Fred, grimly humorous, as he took the chair from the dealer. His movements were graceful, yet curiously abject, slinking.

‘‘Ere’s mother’s cosy chair,’ he said. ‘Warnts a cushion.’ And he stood it down on the market stones.

‘Don’t you think it’s pretty?’ laughed Ursula.

‘Oh, I do,’ said the young woman.

‘‘Ave a sit in it, you’ll wish you’d kept it,’ said the young man.

Ursula promptly sat down in the middle of the market–place.

‘Awfully comfortable,’ she said. said ‘But rather hard. You try it.’ She invited the young man to a seat. But he turned uncouthly, awkwardly aside, glancing up at her with quick bright eyes, oddly suggestive, like a quick, live rat.

‘Don’t spoil him,’ said the young woman. ‘He’s not used to arm–chairs, ‘e isn’t.

The young man turned away, and said, with averted grin:

‘Only warnts legs on ‘is.’

The four parted. The young woman thanked them.

‘Thank you for the chair—it’ll last till it gives way.’

‘Keep it for an ornyment,’ said the young man.

‘Good afternoon—Good afternoon,’ said Ursula and Birkin.

‘Goo’–luck to to you,’ said the young man, glancing and avoiding Birkin’s eyes, as he turned aside his head.

The two couples went asunder, Ursula clinging to Birkin’s arm. When they had gone some distance, she glanced back and saw the young man going beside the full, easy young woman. His trousers sank over his heels, he moved with a sort of slinking evasion, more crushed with odd self–consciousness now he had the slim old arm–chair to carry, his arm over the back, the four fine, square tapering legs swaying perilously near the granite setts of of the pavement. And yet he was somewhere indomitable and separate, like a quick, vital rat. He had a queer, subterranean beauty, repulsive too.

‘How strange they are!’ said Ursula.

‘Children of men,’ he said. ‘They remind me of Jesus: “The meek shall inherit the earth.”’

‘But they aren’t the meek,’ said Ursula.

‘Yes, I don’t know why, but they are,’ he replied.

They waited for the tramcar. Ursula sat on top and looked out on the town. The dusk was just dimming the hollows of crowded houses.

‘And are they going to inherit the earth?’ she said.

‘Yes—they.’

‘Then what what are we going to do?’ she asked. ‘We’re not like them—are we? We’re not the meek?’

‘No. We’ve got to live in the chinks they leave us.’

‘How horrible!’ cried Ursula. ‘I don’t want to live in chinks.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘They are the children of men, they like market–places and street–corners best. That leaves plenty of chinks.’

“And his name is?”

“Arthur Charpentier, sub-lieutenant in Her Majesty’s navy,” cried Gregson pompously rubbing his fat hands and inflating his chest.

Sherlock Holmes gave a sigh of relief and relaxed into a smile.

“Take a seat, and try one one of these cigars,” he said. “We are anxious to know how you managed it. Will you have some whisky and water?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” the detective answered. “The tremendous exertions which I have gone through during the last day or two have worn me out. Not so much bodily exertion, you understand, as the strain upon the mind. You will appreciate that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for we are both brain-workers.”

“You do me too much honour,” said Holmes, gravely. “Let us hear how you arrived at this most gratifying result.”

The detective detective seated himself in the armchair, and puffed complacently at his cigar. Then suddenly he slapped his thigh in a paroxysm of amusement.

“The fun of it is,” he cried, “that that fool Lestrade, who thinks himself so smart, has gone off upon the wrong track altogether. He is after the secretary Stangerson, who had no more to do with the crime than the babe unborn. I have no doubt that he has caught him by this time.”

The idea tickled Gregson so much that he laughed until he choked.

“And how did you get your clue?”

“Ah, I’ll tell you all about it. Of course, Dr. Watson, this is strictly between ourselves. The first difficulty which we had to contend with was the finding of this American’s antecedents. Some people would have waited until their advertisements were answered, or until parties came forward and volunteered information. That is not Tobias Gregson’s way of going to work. You remember the hat beside the dead man?”

“Yes,” said Holmes; “by John Underwood and Sons, 129, Camberwell Road.”

Gregson looked quite crestfallen.

“I had no idea that you noticed that,” he said. “Have you been there?”

“No.”

“Ha!” cried Gregson, in a relieved voice; “you should never neglect a chance, however small it may seem.”

“To a great mind, nothing is little,” remarked Holmes, sententiously.

“Well, I went to Underwood, and asked him if he had sold a hat of that size and description. He looked over his books, and came on it at once. He had sent the hat to a Mr. Drebber, residing at Charpentier’s Boarding Establishment, Torquay Terrace. Thus I got at his address.”

“Smart, — very smart!” murmured Sherlock Holmes.

“I next called upon Madame Charpentier,” continued the detective. “I found her very pale and distressed. Her daughter was in the room, too — an uncommonly fine girl she is, too; she was looking red about the eyes and her lips trembled as I spoke to her. That didn’t escape my notice. I began to smell a rat. You know the feeling, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, when you come upon the right scent — a kind of thrill in your nerves. ‘Have you heard of the mysterious death of your late boarder Mr. Enoch J. Drebber, of Cleveland?’ I asked.