“Oh, yes, you have,” said he, handing me one. “This will do very well. It is almost a facsimile.”

“And who do you expect will answer this advertisement?”

“Why, the man in the brown coat — our florid friend with the square toes. If he does not come himself, he will send an accomplice.”

“Would he not consider it as too dangerous?”

“Not at all. If my view of the case is correct, and I have every reason to believe that it is, this man would rather risk anything than lose the ring. According to my notion he dropped it while stooping over Drebber’s body, and did not miss it at the time. After leaving the house he discovered his loss and hurried back, but found the police already in possession, owing to his own folly in leaving the candle burning. He had to pretend to be drunk in order to allay the suspicions which might have been aroused by his appearance at the gate. Now put yourself in that man’s place. On thinking the matter over, it must have occurred to him that it was possible that he had lost the ring in the road after leaving the house. What would he do then? He would eagerly look out for the evening evening papers in the hope of seeing it among the articles found. His eye, of course, would light upon this. He would be overjoyed. Why should he fear a trap? There would be no reason in his eyes why the finding of the ring should be connected with the murder. He would come. He will come. You shall see him within an hour.”

“And then?” I asked.

“Oh, you can leave me to deal with him then. Have you any arms?”

“I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.”

“You had better clean it and load it. He will be a desperate man; and though I shall take him unawares, it is as well to be ready for anything.”

I went to my bedroom and followed his advice. When I returned with the pistol, the table had been cleared, and Holmes was engaged in his favourite occupation of scraping upon his violin.

“The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered; “I have just had an answer to my American telegram. My view of the case is the correct one.”

“And that is?” I asked eagerly.

“My fiddle would be the better for new strings,” he remarked. “Put your pistol in your pocket. When the fellow comes, speak to him in an ordinary way. Leave the rest to me. Don’t frighten him by looking at him too hard.”

“It is eight o’clock now,” I said, glancing at my watch.

“Yes. He will probably be here in a few minutes. Open the door slightly. That will do. Now put the key on the inside. Thank you! This is a queer old book I picked up at a stall yesterday — De Jure inter Gentes — published in Latin at Liege in the Lowlands, in 1642. Charles’s head was still firm on his shoulders when this little brown-backed volume was struck off.”

“Who is the printer?”

“Philippe de Croy, whoever he may have been. On the flyleaf, in very faded ink, is written ‘Ex libris Guliolmi Whyte.’ I wonder who William Whyte was. Some pragmatical seventeenth century lawyer, I suppose. His writing has a legal twist about it. Here comes our man, I think.”

The great social idea, said Sir Joshua, was the SOCIAL equality of man. No, said Gerald, the idea was, that every man was fit for his own little bit of a task—let him do that, and then please himself. The unifying principle was the work in hand. Only work, the business of production, held men together. It was mechanical, but then society WAS a mechanism. Apart from work they were isolated, free to do as they liked.

‘Oh!’ cried Gudrun. ‘Then we shan’t have names any more—we shall be like the Germans, nothing but Herr Obermeister and Herr Untermeister. I can imagine it—“I am Mrs Colliery–Manager Crich—I am Mrs Member–of–Parliament Roddice. I am Miss Art–Teacher Brangwen.” Very pretty that.’

‘Things would work very much better, Miss Art–Teacher Brangwen,’ said Gerald.

‘What things, Mr Colliery–Manager Crich? The relation between you and me, PAR EXEMPLE?’

‘Yes, for example,’ cried the Italian. ‘That which is between men and women—!’

‘That is non–social,’ said Birkin, sarcastically.

‘Exactly,’ said Gerald. ‘Between me and a woman, the social question does not enter. It is my own affair.’

‘A ten–pound note on it,’ said Birkin.

‘You don’t admit that a woman is a social being?’ asked Ursula of Gerald.

‘She is both,’ said Gerald. ‘She is a social being, as far as society is concerned. But for her own private self, she is a free agent, it is her own affair, what she does.’

‘But won’t it be rather difficult to arrange the two halves?’ asked Ursula.

‘Oh no,’ replied Gerald. ‘They arrange themselves naturally—we see it now, everywhere.’

‘Don’t you laugh so pleasantly till you’re out of the wood,’ said Birkin.

Gerald knitted his brows in momentary irritation.

‘Was I laughing?’ he said.

‘IF,’ said Hermione at last, ‘we could only realise, that in the SPIRIT we are all one, all equal in the spirit, all brothers there—the rest wouldn’t matter, there would be no more of this carping and envy and this struggle for power, which destroys, only destroys.’

This speech was received in silence, and almost immediately the party rose from the table. But when the others had gone, Birkin turned round in bitter declamation, saying:

‘It is just the opposite, just the contrary, Hermione. We are all different and unequal in spirit—it is only the SOCIAL differences that are based on accidental material conditions. We are all abstractly or mathematically equal, if you like. Every man has hunger and thirst, two eyes, one nose and two legs. We’re all the same in point of number. But spiritually, there is pure difference and neither equality nor inequality counts. It is upon these two bits of knowledge that you must found a state. Your democracy is an absolute lie—your brotherhood of man is a pure falsity, if you apply it further than the mathematical abstraction. We all drank milk first, we all eat bread and meat, we all want to ride in motor–cars—therein lies the beginning and the end of the brotherhood of man. But no equality.