“Well, it is certainly singular that he should run the risk of taking originals if he could safely have taken copies, which would have equally served his turn.”

“Singular, no doubt — and yet he did so.”

“Every inquiry in this case reveals something inexplicable. Now there are three papers still missing. They are, as I understand, the vital ones.”

“Yes, that is so.”

“Do you mean to say that anyone holding these three papers and without the seven others, could construct a Bruce-Partington submarine?”

“I reported to that effect to the Admiralty. But to-day I have been over the drawings again, and I am not so sure of it. The double valves with the automatic self-adjusting slots are drawn in one of the papers which have been returned. Until the foreigners had invented that for themselves they could not make the boat. Of course they might soon get over the difficulty.”

“But the three missing drawings are the most important?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“I think, with your permission, I will now take a stroll round me premises. I do not recall any other question which I desired to ask.”

He examined the lock of the safe, the door of the room, and finally the iron shutters of the window. It was only when we were on the the lawn outside that his interest was strongly excited. There was a laurel bush outside the window, and several of the branches bore signs of having been twisted or snapped. He examined them carefully with his lens, and then some dim and vague marks upon the earth beneath. Finally he asked the chief clerk to close the iron shutters, and he pointed out to me that they hardly met in the centre, and that it would be possible for anyone outside to see what was going on within the room.

“The indications are ruined by the three days’ delay. They may mean something or nothing. Well, Watson, I do not think that Woolwich can help us further. It is a small crop which we have gathered. Let us see if we can do better in London.”

Yet we added one more sheaf to our harvest before we left Woolwich Station. The clerk in the ticket office was able to say with confidence that he saw Cadogan West — whom he knew well by sight — upon the Monday night, and that he went to London by the 8:15 to London Bridge. He was alone and took a single third-class ticket. The clerk was struck at the time by his excited and nervous manner. So shaky was he that he could hardly pick up his change, and the clerk had helped him with it. A reference to the timetable showed that the 8:15 was the first train which it was possible for West to take after he had left the lady about 7:30.

“Let us reconstruct, Watson,” said Holmes after half an hour of silence. “I am not aware that in all our joint researches we have ever had a case which was more difficult to get at. Every fresh advance which we make only reveals a fresh ridge beyond. And yet we have surely made some appreciable progress.

And she glanced triumphantly at the already sleeping Clifford, as she stepped softly from the room.

Connie was sorting out one of the Wragby lumber rooms. There were several: the house was a warren, and the family never sold anything. Sir Geoffery’s father had liked pictures and Sir Geoffery’s mother had liked CINQUECENTO furniture. Sir Geoffery himself had liked old carved oak chests, vestry chests. So it went on through the generations. Clifford collected very modern pictures, at very moderate prices.

So in the lumber room there were bad Sir Edwin Landseers and pathetic William Henry Hunt birds’ nests: and other Academy stuff, enough to frighten the daughter of an R.A. She determined to look through it one day, and clear it all. And the grotesque furniture interested her.

Wrapped up carefully to preserve it from damage and dry–rot was the old family cradle, of rosewood. She had to unwrap it, to look at it. It had a certain charm: she looked at it a longtime.

‘It’s thousand pities it won’t be called for,’ sighed Mrs Bolton, who was helping. ‘Though cradles like that are out of date nowadays.’

‘It might be called for. I might have a child,’ said Connie casually, as if saying she might have a new hat.

‘You mean if anything happened to Sir Clifford!’ stammered Mrs Bolton.

‘No! I mean as things are. It’s only muscular paralysis with Sir Clifford—it doesn’t affect him,’ said Connie, lying as naturally as breathing.

Clifford had put the idea into her head. He had said: ‘Of course I may have a child yet. I’m not really mutilated at all. The potency may easily come back, even if the muscles of the hips and legs are paralysed. And then the seed may be transferred.’

He really felt, when he had his periods of energy and worked so hard at the question of the mines, as if his sexual potency were returning. Connie had looked at him in terror. But she was quite quick–witted enough to use his suggestion for her own preservation. For she would have a child if she could: but not his.

Mrs Bolton was for a moment breathless, flabbergasted. Then she didn’t believe it: she saw in it a ruse. Yet doctors could do such things nowadays. They might sort of graft seed.

‘Well, my Lady, I only hope and pray you may. It would be lovely for you: and for everybody. My word, a child in Wragby, what a difference it would make!’

‘Wouldn’t it!’ said Connie.

And she chose three R. A. pictures of sixty years ago, to send to the Duchess of Shortlands for that lady’s next charitable bazaar. She was called ‘the bazaar duchess’, and she always asked all the county to send things for her to sell. She would be delighted with three framed R. A.s. She might even call, on the strength of them. How furious Clifford was when she called!

But oh my dear! Mrs Bolton was thinking to herself. Is it Oliver Mellors’ child you’re preparing us for? Oh my dear, that WOULD be a Tevershall baby in the Wragby cradle, my word! Wouldn’t shame it, neither!