“Is that you, Mr. Smith?” Holmes whispered. “I hardly dared hope that you would come.”

The other laughed.

“I should imagine not,” he said. “And yet, you see, I am here. Coals of fire, Holmes — coals of fire!”

“It is very good of you — very noble of you. I appreciate your special knowledge.”

Our visitor sniggered.

“You do. You are, fortunately, the only man in London who does. Do you know what is the matter with you?”

“The same,” said Holmes.

“Ah! You recognize the symptoms?”

“Only too well.”

“Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, Holmes. I shouldn’t be surprised if it were the same. A bad lookout for you if it is. Poor Victor was a dead man on the fourth day — a strong, hearty young fellow. It was certainly, as you said, very surprising that he should have contracted an out-of-the-way Asiatic disease in the heart of London — a disease, too, of which I had made such a very special study. Singular coincidence, Holmes. Very smart of you to notice it, but rather uncharitable to suggest that it was cause and effect.”

“I knew that you did it.”

“Oh, you did, did you? Well, you couldn’t prove it, anyhow. But what do you think of yourself spreading reports about me like that, and then crawling to me for for help the moment you are in trouble? What sort of a game is that — eh?”

I heard the rasping, laboured breathing of the sick man. “Give me the water!” he gasped.

“You’re precious near your end, my friend, but I don’t want you to go till I have had a word with you. That’s why I give you water. There, don’t slop it about! That’s right. Can you understand what I say?”

Holmes groaned.

“Do what you can for me. Let bygones be bygones,” he whispered. “I’ll put the words out of my head — I swear I will. Only cure me, and I’ll forget it.”

“Forget what?”

“Well, about Victor Savage’s death. You as good as admitted just now that you had done it. I’ll forget it.”

“You can forget it or remember it, just as you like. I don’t see you in the witness-box. Quite another shaped box, my good Holmes, I assure you. It matters nothing to me that you should know how my nephew died. It’s not him we are talking about. It’s you.”

“Yes, yes.”

“The fellow who came for me — I’ve forgotten his name — said that you contracted it down in the East End among the sailors.”

“I could only account for it so.”

“You are proud of your brains, Holmes, are you not? Think yourself smart, don’t you? You came across someone who was smarter this time. Now cast your mind back, Holmes. Can you think of no other way you could have got this thing?”

“I can’t think. My mind is gone. For heaven’s sake help me! ”

She saw a secret little clearing, and a secret little hot made of rustic poles. And she had never been here before! She realized it was the quiet place where the growing pheasants were reared; the keeper in his shirt–sleeves was kneeling, hammering. The dog trotted forward with a short, sharp bark, and the keeper lifted his face suddenly and saw her. He had a startled look in his eyes.

He straightened himself and saluted, watching her in silence, as she came forward with weakening limbs. He resented the intrusion; he cherished his solitude as his only and last freedom in life.

‘I wondered what the hammering was,’ she said, feeling weak and breathless, and a little afraid of him, as he looked so straight at her.

‘Ah’m gettin’ th’ coops ready for th’ young bods,’ he said, in broad vernacular.

She did not know what to say, and she felt weak. ‘I should like to sit down a bit,’ she said.

‘Come and sit ‘ere i’ th’ ‘ut,’ he said, going in front of her to the hut, pushing aside some timber and stuff, and drawing out a rustic chair, made of hazel sticks.

‘Am Ah t’ light yer a little fire?’ he asked, with the curious na‹vet‚ of the dialect.

‘Oh, don’t bother,’ she replied.

But he looked at her hands; they were rather blue. So he quickly took some larch twigs to the little brick fire–place in the corner, and in a moment the yellow flame was running up the chimney. He made a place by the brick hearth.

‘Sit ‘ere then a bit, and warm yer,’ he said.

She obeyed him. He had that curious kind of protective authority she obeyed at once. So she sat and warmed her hands at the blaze, and dropped logs on the fire, whilst outside he was hammering again. She did not really want to sit, poked in a corner by the fire; she would rather have watched from the door, but she was being looked after, so she had to submit.

The hut was quite cosy, panelled with unvarnished deal, having a little rustic table and stool beside her chair, and a carpenter’s bench, then a big box, tools, new boards, nails; and many things hung from pegs: axe, hatchet, traps, things in sacks, his coat. It had no window, the light came in through the open door. It was a jumble, but also it was a sort of little sanctuary.

She listened to the tapping of the man’s hammer; it was not so happy. He was oppressed. Here was a trespass on his privacy, and a dangerous one! A woman! He had reached the point where all he wanted on earth was to be alone. And yet he was powerless to preserve his privacy; he was a hired man, and these people were his masters.

Especially he did not want to come into contact with a woman again. He feared it; for he had a big wound from old contacts. He felt if he could not be alone, and if he could not be left alone, he would die. His recoil away from the outer world was complete; his last refuge was this wood; to hide himself there!

Connie grew warm by the fire, which she had made too big: then she grew hot. She went and sat on the stool in the doorway, watching the man at work. He seemed not to notice her, but he knew. Yet he worked on, as if absorbedly, and his brown dog sat on her tail near him, and surveyed the untrustworthy world.