Suddenly Mrs Crich came noiselessly into the room, peering about with her strong, clear face. She was still wearing her hat, and her sac coat of blue silk.

‘What is it, mother?’ said Gerald.

‘Nothing, nothing!’ she answered vaguely. And she went straight towards Birkin, who was talking to a Crich brother–in–law.

‘How do you do, Mr Birkin,’ she said, in her low voice, that seemed to take no count of her guests. She held out her hand to him.

‘Oh Mrs Crich,’ replied Birkin, in his readily–changing voice, ‘I couldn’t come to you before.’

‘I don’t know half the people here,’ she said, in her low voice. Her son–in–law moved uneasily away.

‘And you don’t like strangers?’ laughed Birkin. ‘I myself can never see why one should take account of people, just because they happen to be in the room with one: why SHOULD I know they are there?’

‘Why indeed, why indeed!’ said Mrs Crich, in her low, tense voice. ‘Except that they ARE there. I don’t know people whom I find in the house. The children introduce them to me—“Mother, this is Mr So–and–so.” I am no further. What has Mr So–and–so to do with his own name?—and what have I to do with either him or his name?’

She looked up at Birkin. She startled him. He was flattered too that she came to talk to him, for she took hardly any notice of anybody. He looked looked down at her tense clear face, with its heavy features, but he was afraid to look into her heavy–seeing blue eyes. He noticed instead how her hair looped in slack, slovenly strands over her rather beautiful ears, which were not quite clean. Neither was her neck perfectly clean. Even in that he seemed to belong to her, rather than to the rest of the company; though, he thought to himself, he was always well washed, at any rate at the neck and ears.

He smiled faintly, thinking these things. Yet he was tense, feeling that he and the elderly, estranged woman were conferring together like traitors, like enemies within the camp of the other people. He resembled a deer, that throws one ear back upon the trail behind, and one ear forward, to know what is ahead.

‘People don’t really matter,’ he said, rather unwilling to continue.

The mother looked up at him with sudden, dark interrogation, as if doubting his sincerity.

‘How do you mean, MATTER?’ she asked sharply.

‘Not many people are anything at all,’ he answered, forced to go deeper than he wanted to. ‘They jingle and giggle. It would be much better if they were just wiped out. Essentially, they don’t exist, they aren’t there.’

She watched him steadily while he spoke.

‘But we didn’t imagine them,’ she said sharply.

‘There’s nothing to imagine, that’s why they don’t exist.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I would hardly go as far as that. There they are, whether they exist or no. It doesn’t rest with me to decide on their existence. I only know that I can’t be expected to take count of them all. You can’t expect me to know them, just because they happen to be there. As far as I go they might as well not be there.’

As he spoke there was a sharp ring at the bell. Sherlock Holmes rose softly and moved his chair in the direction of the door. We heard the servant pass along the hall, and the sharp click of the latch as she opened it.

“Does Dr. Watson live here?” asked a clear but rather harsh voice. We could not hear the servant’s reply, but the door closed, and someone began to ascend the stairs. The footfall was an uncertain and shuffling one. A look of surprise passed over the face of my companion as he listened to it. It came slowly along the passage, and there was a feeble tap at the door.

“Come in,” I cried.

At my summons, instead of the man of violence whom we expected, a very old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment. She appeared to be dazzled by the sudden blaze of light, and after dropping a curtsey, she stood blinking at us with her bleared eyes and fumbling in her pocket with nervous, shaky fingers. I glanced at my companion, and his face had assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was all I could do to keep my countenance.

The old crone drew out an evening paper, and pointed at our advertisement. “It’s this as has brought me, good gentlemen,” she said, dropping another curtsey; “a gold wedding ring in the Brixton Road. It belongs to my girl Sally, as was married only this time twelvemonth, which her husband is steward aboard a Union boat, and what he’d say if he comes ‘ome and found her without her ring is more than I can think, he being short enough at the best o’ times, but more especially when he has the drink. If it please you, she went to the circus last night along with —”

“Is that her ring?” I asked.

“The Lord be thanked!” cried the old woman; “Sally will be a glad woman this night. That’s the ring.”

“And what may your address be?” I inquired, taking up a pencil.

“13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch. A weary way from here.”

“The Brixton Road does not lie between any circus and Houndsditch,” said Sherlock Holmes sharply.

The old woman faced round and looked keenly at him from her little red-rimmed eyes. “The gentleman asked me for my address,” she said. “Sally lives in lodgings at 3, Mayfield Place, Peckham.”

“And your name is?”

“My name is Sawyer — hers is Dennis, which Tom Dennis married her — and a smart, clean lad, too, as long as he’s at sea, and no steward in the company more thought of; but when on shore, what with the women and what with liquor shops —”

“Here is your ring, Mrs. Sawyer,” I interrupted, in obedience to a sign from my companion; “it clearly belongs to your daughter, and I am glad to be able to restore it to the rightful owner.”

With many mumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude the old crone packed it away in her pocket, and shuffled off down the stairs. Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet the moment that she was gone and rushed into his room. He returned in a few seconds enveloped in an ulster and a cravat. “I’ll follow her,” he said, hurriedly; “she must be an accomplice, and will lead me to him. Wait up for me.” The hall door had hardly slammed behind our visitor before Holmes had descended the stair. Looking through the window I could see her walking feebly along the other side, while her pursuer dogged her some little distance behind. “Either his whole theory is incorrect,” I thought to myself, “or else he will be led now to the heart of the mystery.” There was no need for him to ask me to wait up for him, for I felt that sleep was impossible until I heard the result of his adventure.