“He can’t lie in the street. May we bring him in, marm?”

“Surely. Bring him into the sitting room. There is a comfortable sofa. This way, please!”

Slowly and solemnly he was borne into Briony Lodge and laid out in the principal room, while I still observed the proceedings from my post by the window. The lamps had been lit, but the blinds had not been drawn, so that I could see Holmes as he lay upon the couch. I do not know whether he was seized with compunction at that moment for the part he was playing, but I know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life than when I saw the beautiful creature against whom I was conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which she waited upon the injured man. And yet it would be the blackest treachery to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had intrusted to me. I hardened my heart, and took the smoke-rocket from under my ulster. After all, I thought, we are not injuring her. We are but preventing her from injuring another.

Holmes had sat up upon the couch, and I saw him motion like a man who is in need of air. A A maid rushed across and threw open the window. At the same instant I saw him raise his hand and at the signal I tossed my rocket into the room with a cry of “Fire!” The word was no sooner out of my mouth than the whole crowd of spectators, well dressed and ill — gentlemen, ostlers, and servant-maids — joined in a general shriek of “Fire!” Thick clouds of smoke curled through the room and out at the open window. I caught a glimpse of rushing figures, and a moment later the voice of Holmes from within assuring them that it was a false alarm. Slipping through the shouting crowd I made my way to the corner of the street, and in ten minutes was rejoiced to find my friend’s arm in mine, and to get away from the scene of uproar. He walked swiftly and in silence for some few minutes until we had turned down one of the quiet streets which lead towards the Edgeware Road.

“You did it very nicely, Doctor,” he remarked. “Nothing could have been better. It is all right.”

“You have the photograph?”

“I know where it is.”

“And how did you find out?”

“She showed me, as I told you she would.”

“I am still in the dark.”

“I do not wish to make a mystery,” said he, laughing. “The matter was perfectly simple. You, of course, saw that everyone in the street was an accomplice. They were all engaged for the evening.”

“I guessed as much.”

“Then, when the row broke out, I had a little moist red paint in the palm of my hand. I rushed forward, fell down, clapped my hand to my face, and became a piteous spectacle. It is an old trick.”

“That also I could fathom.”

“Then they carried me in. She was bound to have me in. What else could she do? And into her sitting-room, which was the very room which I suspected. It lay between that and her bedroom, and I was determined to see which. They laid me on a couch, I motioned for air, they were compelled to open the window, and you had your chance.”

“No, I won’t let you.”

And now Lilly was continually crossing over and pulling Aaron on to his side, whenever he found him slipped down on his back.

In the morning the doctor was puzzled. Probably it was the toxin in the blood which poisoned the heart. There was no pneumonia. And yet Aaron was clearly growing worse. The doctor agreed to send in a nurse for the coming night.

“What’s the matter with you, man!” he said sharply to his patient. “You give way! You give way! Can’t you pull yourself together?”

But Aaron only became more gloomily withheld, retracting from life. And Lilly began to be really troubled. He got a friend to sit with the patient in the afternoon, whilst he himself went out and arranged to sleep in Aaron’s room, at his lodging.

The next morning, when he came in, he found the patient lying as ever, in a sort of heap in the bed. Nurse had had to lift him up and hold him up again. And now Aaron lay in a sort of semi–stupor of fear, frustrated anger, misery and self–repulsion: a sort of interlocked depression.

The doctor frowned when he came. He talked with the nurse, and wrote another prescription. Then he drew Lilly away to the door.

“What’s the matter with the fellow?” he said. “Can’t you rouse his spirit? He seems to be sulking himself out of life. He’ll drop out quite suddenly, you know, if he goes on like this. Can’t you rouse him up?”

“I think it depresses him partly that his bowels won’t work. It frightens him. He’s never been ill in his life before,” said Lilly.

“His bowels won’t work if he lets all his spirit go, like an animal dying of the sulks,” said the doctor impatiently. “He might go off quite suddenly—dead before you can turn round—”

Lilly was properly troubled. Yet he did not quite know what to do. It was early afternoon, and the sun was shining into the room. There were daffodils and anemones in a jar, and freezias and violets. Down below in the market were two stalls of golden and blue flowers, gay.

“The flowers are lovely in the spring sunshine,” said Lilly. “I wish I were in the country, don’t you? As soon as you are better we’ll go. It’s been a terrible cold, wet spring. But now it’s going to be nice. Do you like being in the country?”

“Yes,” said Aaron.

He was thinking of his garden. He loved it. Never in his life had he been away from a garden before.

“Make haste and get better, and we’ll go.”

“Where?” said Aaron.

“Hampshire. Or Berkshire. Or perhaps you’d like to go home? Would you?”

Aaron lay still, and did not answer.

“Perhaps you want to, and you don’t want to,” said Lilly. “You can please yourself, anyhow.”

There was no getting anything definite out of the sick man—his soul seemed stuck, as if it would not move.