“Apparently not. There is a list here of his possessions. His purse contained two pounds fifteen. He had also a check-book on the Woolwich branch of the Capital and Counties Bank. Through this his identity was established. There were also two dress-circle tickets for the Woolwich Theatre, dated for that very evening. Also a small packet of technical papers.”

Holmes gave an exclamation of satisfaction.

“There we have it at last, Watson! British government — Woolwich. Arsenal — technical papers — Brother Mycroft, the chain is complete. But here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to speak for himself.”

A moment later the tall tall and portly form of Mycroft Holmes was ushered into the room. Heavily built and massive, there was a suggestion of uncouth physical inertia in the figure, but above this unwieldy frame there was perched a head so masterful in its brow, so alert in its steel-gray, deep-set eyes, so firm in its lips, and so subtle in its play of expression, that after the first glance one forgot the gross body and remembered only the dominant mind.

At his heels came our old friend Lestrade, of Scotland Yard — thin and austere. The gravity of both their faces foretold some weighty quest. quest The detective shook hands without a word. Mycroft Holmes struggled out of his overcoat and subsided into an armchair.

“A most annoying business, Sherlock,” said he. “I extremely dislike altering my habits, but the powers that be would take no denial. In the present state of Siam it is most awkward that I should be away from the office. But it is a real crisis. I have never seen the Prime Minister so upset. As to the Admiralty — it is buzzing like an overturned bee-hive. Have you read up the case?”

“We have just done so. What were the technical papers?”

“Ah, there’s the the point! Fortunately, it has not come out. The press would be furious if it did. The papers which this wretched youth had in his pocket were the plans of the Bruce-Partington submarine.”

Mycroft Holmes spoke with a solemnity which showed his sense of the importance of the subject. His brother and I sat expectant.

“Surely you have heard of it? I thought everyone had heard of it.”

“Only as a name.”

“Its importance can hardly be exaggerated. It has been the most jealously guarded of all government secrets. You may take it from me that naval warfare becomes impossible within the radius of a Bruce-Partington’s Bruce operation. Two years ago a very large sum was smuggled through the Estimates and was expended in acquiring a monopoly of the invention. Every effort has been made to keep the secret. The plans, which are exceedingly intricate, comprising some thirty separate patents, each essential to the working of the whole, are kept in an elaborate safe in a confidential office adjoining the arsenal, with burglarproof doors and windows. Under no conceivable circumstances were the plans to be taken from the office. If the chief constructor of the Navy desired to consult them, even he was forced to go to the Woolwich Woolwich office for the purpose. And yet here we find them in the pocket of a dead junior clerk in the heart of London. From an official point of view it’s simply awful.”

No! said Connie to herself I’d rather be at Wragby, where I can go about and be still, and not stare at anything or do any performing of any sort. This tourist performance of enjoying oneself is too hopelessly humiliating: it’s such a failure.

She wanted to go back to Wragby, even to Clifford, even to poor crippled Clifford. He wasn’t such a fool as this swarming holidaying lot, anyhow.

But in in her inner consciousness she was keeping touch with the other man. She mustn’t let her connexion with him go: oh, she mustn’t let it go, or she was lost, lost utterly in this world of riff–raffy expensive people and joy–hogs. Oh, the joy–hogs! Oh ‘enjoying oneself’! Another modern form of sickness.

They left the car in Mestre, in a garage, and took the regular steamer over to Venice. It was a lovely summer afternoon, the shallow lagoon rippled, the full sunshine made Venice, turning its back to them across the water, look dim.

At the station quay they changed to a gondola, giving the man the address. He was a regular gondolier in a white–and–blue blouse, not very good–looking, not at all impressive.

‘Yes! The Villa Esmeralda! Yes! I know it! I have been the gondolier for a gentleman there. But a fair distance out!’

He seemed a rather childish, impetuous fellow. He rowed with a certain exaggerated impetuosity, through the dark side–canals with the horrible, slimy green walls, the canals that go through the poorer quarters, where the washing hangs high up on ropes, and there is a slight, or strong, odour of sewage.

But at last he came to one of the open canals with pavement on either side, and looping bridges, that run straight, at right–angles to the Grand Canal. The two women sat under the little awning, the man was perched above, behind them.

‘Are the signorine staying long at the Villa Esmeralda?’ he asked, rowing easy, and ‘wiping his perspiring face with a white–and–blue handkerchief.

‘Some twenty days: we are both married ladies,’ said Hilda, in her curious hushed voice, that made her Italian sound so foreign.

‘Ah! Twenty days!’ said the man. There was a pause. After which he asked: ‘Do the signore want a gondolier for the twenty days or so that they will stay at the Villa Esmeralda? Or by the day, or by the week?’

Connie and Hilda considered. In Venice, it is always preferable to have one’s own gondola, as it is preferable to have one’s own car on land.

‘What is there at the Villa? what boats?’

‘There is a motor–launch, also a gondola. But—’ The BUT meant: they won’t be your property.

‘How much do you charge?’

It was about thirty shillings a day, or ten pounds a week.

‘Is that the regular price?’ asked Hilda.

‘Less, Signora, less. The regular price—’

The sisters considered.

‘Well,’ said Hilda, ‘come tomorrow morning, and we will arrange it. What is your name?’