But the great, dark, illimitable kingdom of death, there humanity was put to scorn. So much they could do upon earth, the multifarious little gods that they were. But the kingdom of death put them all to scorn, they dwindled into their true vulgar silliness in face of it.

How beautiful, how grand and perfect death was, how good to look forward to. There one would wash off all the lies and ignominy and dirt that had been put upon one here, a perfect bath of cleanness and glad refreshment, and go unknown, unquestioned, unabased. After all, one was rich, if if only in the promise of perfect death. It was a gladness above all, that this remained to look forward to, the pure inhuman otherness of death.

Whatever life might be, it could not take away death, the inhuman transcendent death. Oh, let us ask no question of it, what it is or is not. To know is human, and in death we do not know, we are not human. And the joy of this compensates for all the bitterness of knowledge and the sordidness of our humanity. In death we shall not be human, and we shall not know. The promise promise of this is our heritage, we look forward like heirs to their majority.

Ursula sat quite still and quite forgotten, alone by the fire in the drawing–room. The children were playing in the kitchen, all the others were gone to church. And she was gone into the ultimate darkness of her own soul.

She was startled by hearing the bell ring, away in the kitchen, the children came scudding along the passage in delicious alarm.

‘Ursula, there’s somebody.’

‘I know. Don’t be silly,’ she replied. She too was startled, almost frightened. She dared hardly go to the door.

Birkin stood on the threshold, his rain–coat rain turned up to his ears. He had come now, now she was gone far away. She was aware of the rainy night behind him.

‘Oh is it you?’ she said.

‘I am glad you are at home,’ he said in a low voice, entering the house.

‘They are all gone to church.’

He took off his coat and hung it up. The children were peeping at him round the corner.

‘Go and get undressed now, Billy and Dora,’ said Ursula. ‘Mother will be back soon, and she’ll be disappointed if you’re not in bed.’

The children, in a sudden angelic mood, retired without a word. word Birkin and Ursula went into the drawing–room.

The fire burned low. He looked at her and wondered at the luminous delicacy of her beauty, and the wide shining of her eyes. He watched from a distance, with wonder in his heart, she seemed transfigured with light.

‘What have you been doing all day?’ he asked her.

‘Only sitting about,’ she said.

He looked at her. There was a change in her. But she was separate from him. She remained apart, in a kind of brightness. They both sat silent in the soft light of the lamp. He felt he ought to go away again, again he ought not to have come. Still he did not gather enough resolution to move. But he was DE TROP, her mood was absent and separate.

“Ah, you find it so, Mr. Lestrade!” cried Gregson, triumphantly. “I thought you would come to that conclusion. Have you managed to find the secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson?”

“The secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson,” said Lestrade, gravely, “was murdered at Halliday’s Private Hotel about six o‘clock this morning.”

The intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so momentous and so unexpected that we were all three fairly dumfounded. Gregson sprang out of his chair and upset the remainder remainder of his whisky and water. I stared in silence at Sherlock Holmes, whose lips were compressed and his brows drawn down over his eyes. “Stangerson too!” he muttered. “The plot thickens.”

“It was quite thick enough before,” grumbled Lestrade, taking a chair, “I seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war.”

“Are you — are you sure of this piece of intelligence?” stammered Gregson.

“I have just come from his room,” said Lestrade. “I was the first to discover what had occurred.”

“We have been hearing Gregson’s view of the matter,” Holmes observed. “Would you mind letting us know what you have seen and done?”

“I have no objection,” Lestrade answered, seating himself. “I freely confess that I was of the opinion that Stangerson was concerned in the death of Drebber. This fresh development has shown me that I was completely mistaken. Full of the one idea, I set myself to find out what had become of the secretary. They had been seen together at Euston Station about half-past eight on the evening of the 3rd. At two in the morning Drebber had been found in the Brixton Road. The question which confronted me was to find out how Stangerson had been employed between 8:30 and the time of the crime, and what had become of him afterwards. I telegraphed to Liverpool, giving a description of the man, and warning them to keep a watch upon the American boats. I then set to work calling upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in the vicinity of Euston. You see, I argued that if Drebber and his companion had become separated, the natural course for the latter would be to put up somewhere in the vicinity for the night, and then to hang about the station again next morning.”

“They would be likely to agree on some meeting place beforehand,” remarked Holmes.

“So it proved. I spent the whole of yesterday evening in making inquiries entirely without avail. This morning I began very early, and at eight o’clock I reached Halliday‘s Private Hotel, in Little George Street. On my inquiry as to whether a Mr. Stangerson was living there, they at once answered me in the affirmative.

“‘No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,’ they said. ‘He has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.’

“‘Where is he now?’ I asked.

“‘He is upstairs in bed. He wished to be called at nine.’