It was the maid with a telegram. Holmes tore it open and burst out laughing.

“Well, well! What next?” said he. “Brother Mycroft is coming round.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Why not? It is as if you met a tram-car coming down a country lane. Mycroft has his rails and he runs on them. His Pall Mall lodgings, the Diogenes Club, Whitehall — that is his cycle. Once, and only once, he has been here. What upheaval can possibly have derailed him?”

“Does he not explain?”

Holmes handed me his brother’s telegram.

Must see you over Cadogan West. Coming at once.

MYCROFT.

“Cadogan West? I have heard the name.”

“It recalls nothing to my mind. But that Mycroft should break out in this erratic fashion! A planet might as well leave its orbit. By the way, do you know what Mycroft is?”

I had some vague recollection of an explanation at the time of the Adventure of the Greek Interpreter.

“You told me that he had some small office under the British government.”

Holmes chuckled.

“I did not know you quite so well in those days. One has to be discreet when one talks of high matters of state. You You are right in thinking that he is under the British government. You would also be right in a sense if you said that occasionally he is the British government.”

“My dear Holmes!”

“I thought I might surprise you. Mycroft draws four hundred and fifty pounds a year, remains a subordinate, has no ambitions of any kind, will receive neither honour nor title, but remains the most indispensable man in the country.”

“But how?”

“Well, his position is unique. He has made it for himself. There has never been anything like it before, nor will be again. He has the tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest capacity for storing facts, of any man living. The same great powers which I have turned to the detection of crime he has used for this particular business. The conclusions of every department are passed to him, and he is the central exchange, the clearinghouse, which makes out the balance. All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience. We will suppose that a minister needs information as to a point which involves the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get his separate advices from various departments upon each, but only Mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would affect the other. They began by using him as a short-cut, a convenience; now he has made himself an essential. In that great brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed out in an instant. Again and again his word has decided the national policy. He lives in it. He thinks of nothing else save when, as an intellectual exercise, he unbends if I call upon him and ask him to advise me on one of my little problems. But Jupiter is descending to-day. What on earth can it mean? Who is Cadogan West, and what is he to Mycroft?”

‘I shall if I possibly can. I should be fearfully proud if I had a child by him.’

It was no use talking to her. Hilda pondered.

‘And doesn’t Clifford suspect?’ she said.

‘Oh no! Why should he?’

‘I’ve no doubt you’ve given him plenty of occasion for suspicion,’ said Hilda.

‘Not it all.’

‘And tonight’s business seems quite gratuitous folly. Where does the man live?’

‘In the cottage at the other end of the wood.’

‘Is he a bachelor?’

‘No! His wife left him.’

‘How old?’

‘I don’t know. Older than me.’

Hilda became more angry at every reply, angry as her mother used to be, in a kind of paroxysm. But still she hid it.

‘I would give up tonight’s escapade if I were you,’ she advised calmly.

‘I can’t! I MUST stay with him tonight, or I can’t go to Venice at all. I just can’t.’

Hilda heard her father over again, and she gave way, out of mere diplomacy. And she consented to drive to Mansfield, both of them, to dinner, to bring Connie back to the lane–end after dark, and to fetch her from the lane–end the next morning, herself sleeping in Mansfield, only half an hour away, good going.

But she was furious. She stored it up against her sister, this balk in her plans.

Connie flung an emerald–green shawl over her window–sill.

On the strength of her anger, Hilda warmed toward Clifford.

After all, he had a mind. And if he had no sex, functionally, all the better: so much the less to quarrel about! Hilda wanted no more of that sex business, where men became nasty, selfish little horrors. Connie really had less to put up with than many women if she did but know it.

And Clifford decided that Hilda, after all, was a decidedly intelligent woman, and would make a man a first–rate helpmate, if he were going in for politics for example. Yes, she had none of Connie’s silliness, Connie was more a child: you had to make excuses for her, because she was not altogether dependable.

There was an early cup of tea in the hall, where doors were open to let in the sun. Everybody seemed to be panting a little.

‘Good–bye, Connie girl! Come back to me safely.’

‘Good–bye, Clifford! Yes, I shan’t be long.’ Connie was almost tender.

‘Good–bye, Hilda! You will keep an eye on her, won’t you?’

‘I’ll even keep two!’ said Hilda. ‘She shan’t go very far astray.’

‘It’s a promise!’

‘Good–bye, Mrs Bolton! I know you’ll look after Sir Clifford nobly.’

‘I’ll do what I can, your Ladyship.’

‘And write to me if there is any news, and tell me about Sir Clifford, how he is.’

‘Very good, your Ladyship, I will. And have a good time, and come back and cheer us up.’