‘Pussum, why do you do that?’ he cried in panic. He gave Gerald the impression that he was terrified of her, and that he loved his terror. He seemed to relish his own horror and hatred of her, turn it over and extract every flavour from it, in real panic. Gerald thought him a strange fool, and yet piquant.

‘But Pussum,’ said another man, in a very small, quick Eton voice, ‘you promised not to hurt him.’

‘I haven’t hurt him,’ she answered.

‘What will you drink?’ the young man asked. He was dark, and smooth–skinned, and full of a stealthy vigour.

‘I don’t like porter, Maxim,’ she replied.

‘You must ask for champagne,’ came came the whispering, gentlemanly voice of the other.

Gerald suddenly realised that this was a hint to him.

‘Shall we have champagne?’ he asked, laughing.

‘Yes please, dwy,’ she lisped childishly.

Gerald watched her eating the oysters. She was delicate and finicking in her eating, her fingers were fine and seemed very sensitive in the tips, so she put her food apart with fine, small motions, she ate carefully, delicately. It pleased him very much to see her, and it irritated Birkin. They were all drinking champagne. Maxim, the prim young Russian with the smooth, warm–coloured face and black, oiled hair was the only one who seemed to be perfectly calm and sober. Birkin was was white and abstract, unnatural, Gerald was smiling with a constant bright, amused, cold light in his eyes, leaning a little protectively towards the Pussum, who was very handsome, and soft, unfolded like some red lotus in dreadful flowering nakedness, vainglorious now, flushed with wine and with the excitement of men. Halliday looked foolish. One glass of wine was enough to make him drunk and giggling. Yet there was always a pleasant, warm naivete about him, that made him attractive.

‘I’m not afwaid of anything except black–beetles,’ said the Pussum, looking up suddenly and staring with her black eyes, on which there seemed an unseeing film of flame, fully upon Gerald. He He laughed dangerously, from the blood. Her childish speech caressed his nerves, and her burning, filmed eyes, turned now full upon him, oblivious of all her antecedents, gave him a sort of licence.

‘I’m not,’ she protested. ‘I’m not afraid of other things. But black–beetles—ugh!’ she shuddered convulsively, as if the very thought were too much to bear.

‘Do you mean,’ said Gerald, with the punctiliousness of a man who has been drinking, ‘that you are afraid of the sight of a black–beetle, or you are afraid of a black–beetle biting you, or doing you some harm?’

‘Do they bite?’ cried the girl.

‘How perfectly loathsome!’ exclaimed Halliday.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Gerald, looking round the the table. ‘Do black–beetles bite? But that isn’t the point. Are you afraid of their biting, or is it a metaphysical antipathy?’

As he spoke there was a sharp ring at the bell. Sherlock Holmes rose softly and moved his chair in the direction of the door. We heard the servant pass along the hall, and the sharp click of the latch as she opened it.

“Does Dr. Watson live here?” asked a clear but rather harsh voice. We could not hear the servant’s reply, but the door closed, and someone began to ascend the stairs. The footfall was an uncertain and shuffling one. A look of surprise passed over the face of of my companion as he listened to it. It came slowly along the passage, and there was a feeble tap at the door.

“Come in,” I cried.

At my summons, instead of the man of violence whom we expected, a very old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment. She appeared to be dazzled by the sudden blaze of light, and after dropping a curtsey, she stood blinking at us with her bleared eyes and fumbling in her pocket with nervous, shaky fingers. I glanced at my companion, and his face had assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was all I could do to keep my countenance.

The old crone drew out out an evening paper, and pointed at our advertisement. “It’s this as has brought me, good gentlemen,” she said, dropping another curtsey; “a gold wedding ring in the Brixton Road. It belongs to my girl Sally, as was married only this time twelvemonth, which her husband is steward aboard a Union boat, and what he’d say if he comes ‘ome and found her without her ring is more than I can think, he being short enough at the best o’ times, but more especially when he has the drink. If it please you, she went to the circus last night along with —”

“Is that her ring?” I asked.

“The Lord be thanked!” cried the old woman; “Sally will be a glad woman this night. That’s the ring.”

“And what may your address be?” I inquired, taking up a pencil.

“13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch. A weary way from here.”

“The Brixton Road does not lie between any circus and Houndsditch,” said Sherlock Holmes sharply.

The old woman faced round and looked keenly at him from her little red-rimmed eyes. “The gentleman asked me for my address,” she said. “Sally lives in lodgings at 3, Mayfield Place, Peckham.”

“And your name is?”

“My name is Sawyer — hers is Dennis, which Tom Dennis married her — and a smart, clean lad, too, as long as he’s at sea, and no steward in the company more thought of; but when on shore, what with the women and what with liquor shops —”

“Here is your ring, Mrs. Sawyer,” I interrupted, in obedience to a sign from my companion; “it clearly belongs to your daughter, and I am glad to be able to restore it to the rightful owner.”

With many mumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude the old crone packed it away in her pocket, and shuffled off down the stairs. Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet the moment that she was gone and rushed into his room. He returned in a few seconds enveloped in an ulster and a cravat. “I’ll follow her,” he said, hurriedly; “she must be an accomplice, and will lead me to him. Wait up for me.” The hall door had hardly slammed behind our visitor before Holmes had descended the stair. Looking through the window I could see her walking feebly along the other side, while her pursuer dogged her some little distance behind. “Either his whole theory is incorrect,” I thought to myself, “or else he will be led now to the heart of the mystery.” There was no need for him to ask me to wait up for him, for I felt that sleep was impossible until I heard the result of his adventure.