‘Detest it,’ he repeated.

‘Yes,’ she murmured, assured and satisfied.

‘But,’ Gerald insisted, ‘you don’t allow one man to take away his neighbour’s living, so why should you allow one nation to take away the living from another nation?’

There was a long slow murmur from Hermione before she broke into speech, saying with a laconic indifference:

‘It is not always a question of possessions, is it? It is not all a question of goods?’

Gerald was nettled by this implication of vulgar materialism.

‘Yes, more or less,’ he retorted. ‘If I go and take a man’s hat from off his head, that hat becomes a symbol of that man’s liberty. When he fights me for his hat, he is fighting me for his liberty.’

Hermione was nonplussed.

‘Yes,’ she said, irritated. ‘But that way of arguing by imaginary instances is not supposed to be genuine, is it? A man does NOT come and take my hat from off my head, does he?’

‘Only because the law prevents him,’ said Gerald.

‘Not only,’ said Birkin. ‘Ninety–nine men out of a hundred don’t want my hat.’

‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ said Gerald.

‘Or the hat,’ laughed the bridegroom.

‘And if he does want my hat, such as it is,’ said Birkin, ‘why, surely it is open open to me to decide, which is a greater loss to me, my hat, or my liberty as a free and indifferent man. If I am compelled to offer fight, I lose the latter. It is a question which is worth more to me, my pleasant liberty of conduct, or my hat.’

‘Yes,’ said Hermione, watching Birkin strangely. ‘Yes.’

‘But would you let somebody come and snatch your hat off your head?’ the bride asked of Hermione.

The face of the tall straight woman turned slowly and as if drugged to this new speaker.

‘No,’ she replied, in a low inhuman tone, that seemed to contain a chuckle. ‘No, I shouldn’t let anybody take my hat off my head.’

‘How would you prevent it?’ asked Gerald.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Hermione slowly. ‘Probably I should kill him.’

There was a strange chuckle in her tone, a dangerous and convincing humour in her bearing.

‘Of course,’ said Gerald, ‘I can see Rupert’s point. It is a question to him whether his hat or his peace of mind is more important.’

‘Peace of body,’ said Birkin.

‘Well, as you like there,’ replied Gerald. ‘But how are you going to decide this for a nation?’

‘Heaven preserve me,’ laughed Birkin.

‘Yes, but suppose you have to?’ Gerald persisted.

‘Then it is the same. If the national crown–piece is an old hat, then the thieving gent may have it.’

‘But CAN the national or racial hat be an old hat?’ insisted Gerald.

“This was the first point gained. I then walked slowly down the garden path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly suitable for taking impressions. No doubt it appeared to you to be a mere trampled line of slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon its surface had a meaning. There is no branch of detective science which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps. Happily, I have always laid great stress upon it, and much practice has made it second nature to me. I saw the heavy footmarks of the constables, but I saw also the track of the two men who had first passed through the garden. It was easy to tell that they had been before the others, because in places their marks had been entirely obliterated by the others coming upon the top of them. In this way my second link was formed, which told me that the nocturnal visitors were two in number, one remarkable for his height (as I calculated from the length of his stride), and the other fashionably dressed, to judge from the small and elegant impression left by his boots.

“On entering the house this last inference was confirmed. My well-booted man lay before me. The tall one, then, had done the murder, if murder there was. There was no wound upon the dead man’s person, but the agitated expression upon his face assured me that he had foreseen his fate before it came upon him. Men who die from heart disease, or any sudden natural cause, never by any chance exhibit agitation upon their features. Having sniffed the dead man’s lips, I detected a slightly sour smell, and I came to the conclusion that he had had poison forced upon him. Again, I argued that it had been forced upon him from the hatred and fear expressed upon his face. By the method of exclusion, I had arrived at this result, for no other hypothesis would meet the facts. Do not imagine that it was a very unheard-of idea. The forcible administration of poison is by no means a new thing in criminal annals. The cases of Dolsky in Odessa, and of Leturier in Montpellier, will occur at once to any toxicologist.

“And now came the great question as to the reason why. Robbery had not been the object of the murder, for nothing was taken. Was it politics, then, or was it a woman? That was the question which confronted me. I was inclined from the first to the latter supposition. Political assassins are only too glad to do their work and to fly. This murder had, on the contrary, been done most deliberately, and the perpetrator had left his tracks all over the room, showing that he had been there all the time. It must have been a private wrong, and not a political one, which called for such a methodical revenge. When the inscription was discovered upon the wall, I was more inclined than ever to my opinion. The thing was too evidently a blind. When the ring was found, however, it settled the question. Clearly the murderer had used it to remind his victim of some dead or absent woman. It was at this point that I asked Gregson whether he had inquired in his telegram to Cleveland as to any particular point in Mr. Drebber’s former career. He answered, you remember, in the negative.