‘Detest it,’ he repeated.

‘Yes,’ she murmured, assured and satisfied.

‘But,’ Gerald insisted, ‘you don’t allow one man to take away his neighbour’s living, so why should you allow one nation to take away the living from another nation?’

There was a long slow murmur from Hermione before she broke into speech, saying with a laconic indifference:

‘It is not always a question of possessions, is it? It is not all a question of goods?’

Gerald was nettled by this implication of vulgar materialism.

‘Yes, more or less,’ he retorted. ‘If I go and take a man’s hat from off his head, that hat becomes a symbol of that man’s liberty. When he fights me for his hat, he is fighting me for his liberty.’

Hermione was nonplussed.

‘Yes,’ she said, irritated. ‘But that way of arguing by imaginary instances is not supposed to be genuine, is it? A man does NOT come and take my hat from off my head, does he?’

‘Only because the law prevents him,’ said Gerald.

‘Not only,’ said Birkin. ‘Ninety–nine men out of a hundred don’t want my hat.’

‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ said Gerald.

‘Or the hat,’ laughed the the bridegroom.

‘And if he does want my hat, such as it is,’ said Birkin, ‘why, surely it is open to me to decide, which is a greater loss to me, my hat, or my liberty as a free and indifferent man. If I am compelled to offer fight, I lose the latter. It is a question which is worth more to me, my pleasant liberty of conduct, or my hat.’

‘Yes,’ said Hermione, watching Birkin strangely. ‘Yes.’

‘But would you let somebody come and snatch your hat off your head?’ the bride asked of Hermione.

The face of the tall straight woman turned slowly and as if drugged to this new speaker.

‘No,’ she replied, in a low inhuman tone, that seemed to contain a chuckle. ‘No, I shouldn’t let anybody take my hat off my head.’

‘How would you prevent it?’ asked Gerald.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Hermione slowly. ‘Probably I should kill him.’

There was a strange chuckle in her tone, a dangerous and convincing humour in her bearing.

‘Of course,’ said Gerald, ‘I can see Rupert’s point. It is a question to him whether his hat or his peace of mind is more important.’

‘Peace of body,’ said Birkin.

‘Well, as you like there,’ replied Gerald. ‘But how are you going to decide this for a nation?’

‘Heaven preserve me,’ laughed Birkin.

‘Yes, but suppose you have to?’ Gerald persisted.

‘Then it is the same. If the national crown–piece is an old hat, then the thieving gent may have it.’

‘But CAN the national or racial hat be an old hat?’ insisted Gerald.

“You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,” my companion interrupted. “What did you do that for?”

Rance gave a violent jump, and stared at Sherlock Holmes with the utmost amazement upon his features.

“Why, that’s true, sir,” he said; “though how you come to know it, Heaven only knows. Ye see when I got up to the door, it was so still and so lonesome, that I thought I’d be none the worse for someone with me. I ain’t afeared of anything on this side o’ the grave; but I thought that maybe it was him that died o’ the typhoid inspecting the drains what killed him. The thought gave me a kind o’ turn, and I walked back to the gate to see if I could see Murcher’s lantern, but there wasn‘t no sign of him nor of anyone else.”

“There was no one in the street?”

“Not a livin’ soul, sir, nor as much as a dog. Then I pulled myself together and went back and pushed the door open. All was quiet inside, so I went into the room where the light was a-burnin’. There was a candle flickerin’ on the mantelpiece — a red wax one — and by its light I saw —”

“Yes, I know all that you saw. You walked round the room several times, and you knelt down by the body, and then you walked through and tried the kitchen door, and then —”

John Rance sprang to his feet with a frightened face and suspicion in his eyes. “Where was you hid to see all that?” he cried. “It seems to me that you knows a deal more than you should.”

Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the constable. “Don’t go arresting me for the murder,” he said. “I am one of the hounds and not the wolf; Mr. Gregson or Mr. Lestrade will answer for that. Go on, though. What did you do next?”

Rance resumed his seat, without, however, losing his mystified expression. “I went back to the gate and sounded my whistle. That brought Murcher and two more to the spot.”

“Was the street empty then?”

“Well, it was, as far as anybody that could be of any good goes.”

“What do you mean?”

The constable’s features broadened into a grin, “I‘ve seen many a drunk chap in my time,” he said, “but never anyone so cryin’ drunk as that cove. He was at the gate when I came out, a-leanin’ up ag’in the railings, and a-singin’ at the pitch o’ his lungs about Columbine’s New-fangled Banner, or some such stuff. He couldn’t stand, far less help.”

“What sort of a man was he?” asked Sherlock Holmes.

John Rance appeared to be somewhat irritated at this digression. “He was an uncommon drunk sort o’ man,” he said. “He’d ha’ found hisself in the station if we hadn’t been so took up.”

“His face — his dress — didn’t you notice them?” Holmes broke in impatiently.