‘That’s you in all your glory!’ he said. ‘Lady Jane, at her wedding with John Thomas.’

And he stuck flowers in the hair of his own body, and wound a bit of creeping–jenny round his penis, and stuck a single bell of a hyacinth in his navel. She watched him with amusement, his odd intentness. And she pushed a campion flower in his moustache, where it stuck, dangling under his nose.

‘This is John Thomas marryin’ Lady Jane,’ he said. ‘An’ we mun let Constance an’ Oliver go their ways. Maybe—’

He spread out his hand with a gesture, and then he sneezed, sneezing away the flowers from his nose and his navel. He sneezed again.

‘Maybe what?’ she said, waiting for him to go on.

He looked at her a little bewildered.

‘Eh?’ he said.

‘Maybe what? Go on with what you were going to say,’ she insisted.

‘Ay, what WAS I going to say?’

He had forgotten. And it was one of the disappointments of her life, that he never finished.

A yellow ray of sun shone over the trees.

‘Sun!’ he said. ‘And time you went. Time, my Lady, time! What’s that as flies without wings, your Ladyship? Time! Time!’

He reached for his shirt.

‘Say goodnight! to John Thomas,’ he said, looking down at his penis. ‘He’s safe in the arms of creeping Jenny! Not much burning pestle about him just now.’

And he put put his flannel shirt over his head.

‘A man’s most dangerous moment,’ he said, when his head had emerged, ‘is when he’s getting into his shirt. Then he puts his head in a bag. That’s why I prefer those American shirts, that you put on like a jacket.’ She still stood watching him. He stepped into his short drawers, and buttoned them round the waist.

‘Look at Jane!’ he said. ‘In all her blossoms! Who’ll put blossoms on you next year, Jinny? Me, or somebody else? ‘‘Good–bye, my bluebell, farewell to you!’’ I hate that song, it’s early war days.’ He then sat down, and was pulling on his stockings. She still stood unmoving. He laid his hand on the slope of her buttocks. ‘Pretty little Lady Jane!’ he said. ‘Perhaps in Venice you’ll find a man who’ll put jasmine in your maiden–hair, and a pomegranate flower in your navel. Poor little lady Jane!’

‘Don’t say those things!’ she said. ‘You only say them to hurt me.’

He dropped his head. Then he said, in dialect:

‘Ay, maybe I do, maybe I do! Well then, I’ll say nowt, an’ ha’ done wi’t. But tha mun dress thysen, all’ go back to thy stately homes of England, how beautiful they stand. Time’s up! Time’s up for Sir John, an’ for little Lady Jane! Put thy shimmy on, Lady Chatterley! Tha might be anybody, standin’ there be–out even a shimmy, an’ a few rags o’ flowers. There then, there then, I’ll undress thee, tha bob–tailed young throstle.’ And he took the leaves from her hair, kissing her damp hair, and the flowers from her breasts, and kissed her breasts, and kissed her navel, and kissed her maiden–hair, where he left the flowers threaded. ‘They mun stop while they will,’ he said. ‘So! There tha’rt bare again, nowt but a bare–arsed lass an’ a bit of a Lady Jane! Now put thy shimmy on, for tha mun go, or else Lady Chatterley’s goin’ to be late for dinner, an’ where ‘ave yer been to my pretty maid!’

“But how did you get to work again?”

“Ah, I have often marvelled at it myself. The Foreign Minister alone I could have withstood, but when the Premier also deigned to visit my humble roof! The fact is, Watson, that this gentleman upon the sofa was a bit too good for our people. He was in a class by himself. Things were going wrong, and no one could understand why they were going wrong. Agents were suspected or even caught, but there was evidence of some strong and secret central force. It was absolutely necessary to expose it. Strong pressure was brought upon me to look into the matter. It has cost me two years, Watson, but they have not been devoid of excitement. When I say that I started my pilgrimage at Chicago, graduated in an Irish secret society at Buffalo, gave serious trouble to the constabulary at Skibbareen, and so eventually caught the eye of a subordinate agent of Von Bork, who recommended me as a likely man, you will realize that the matter was complex. Since then I have been honoured by his confidence, which has not prevented most of his plans going subtly wrong and five of his best agents being in prison. I watched them, Watson, and I picked them as they ripened. Well, sir, I hope that you are none the worse!”

The last remark was addressed to Von Bork himself, who after much gasping and blinking had lain quietly listening to Holmes’s statement. He broke out now into a furious stream of German invective, his face convulsed with passion. Holmes continued his swift investigation of documents while his prisoner cursed and swore.

“Though unmusical, German is the most expressive of all languages,” he observed when Von Bork had stopped from pure exhaustion. “Hullo! Hullo!” he added as he looked hard at the corner of a tracing before putting it in the box. “This should put another bird in the cage. I had no idea that the paymaster was such a rascal, though I have long had an eye upon him. Mister Von Bork, you have a great deal to answer for.”

The prisoner had raised himself with some difficulty upon the sofa and was staring with a strange mixture of amazement and hatred at his captor. I shall get level with you, Altamont,” he said, speaking with slow deliberation. “If it takes me all my life I shall get level with you!”

“The old sweet song,” said Holmes. “How often have I heard it in days gone by. It was a favourite ditty of the late lamented Professor Moriarty. Colonel Sebastian Moran has also been known to warble it. And yet I live and keep bees upon the South Downs.”

“Curse you, you double traitor!” cried the German, straining against his bonds and glaring murder from his furious eyes.

“No, no, it is not so bad as that,” said Holmes, smiling. “As my speech surely shows you, Mr. Altamont of Chicago had no existence in fact. I used him and he is gone.”

“Then who are you?”

“It is really immaterial who I am, but since the matter seems to interest you, Mr. Von Bork, I may say that this is not my first acquaintance with the members of your family. I have done a good deal of business in Germany in the past and my name is probably familiar to you.”