“Yours very truly,

“G. LESTRADE

“Hum! The investigation really was a very simple one,” remarked Holmes, “but I don’t think it struck him in that light when he first called us in. However, let us see what Jim Browner has to say for himself. This is his statement as made before Inspector Montgomery at the Shadwell Police Station, and it has the advantage of being verbatim.”

Have I anything to say? Yes, I have a deal to say. I have to make a clean breast of it all. You can hang me, or you can leave me alone. I don’t care a plug which you do. I tell you I’ve not shut an eye in sleep since I did it, and I don’t believe I ever will again until I get past all waking. Sometimes it’s his face, but most generally it’s hers. I’m never without one or the other before me. He looks frowning and black-like, but she has a kind o’ surprise upon her face. Ay, the white lamb, she might well be surprised when she read death on a face that had seldom looked anything but love upon her before.

But it was Sarah’s fault, and may the curse of a broken man put a blight on her and set the blood rotting in her veins! It’s not that I want to clear myself. I know that I went back to drink, like the beast that I was. But she would have forgiven forgiven me; she would have stuck as close to me as a rope to a block if that woman had never darkened our door. For Sarah Cushing loved me — that’s the root of the business — she loved me until all her love turned to poisonous hate when she knew that I thought more of my wife’s footmark in the mud than I did of her whole body and soul.

There were three sisters altogether. The old one was just a good woman, the second was a devil, and the third was an angel. Sarah was thirty-three, and Mary was twenty-nine when I married. We were just as happy as the day was long when we set up house together, and in all Liverpool there was no better woman than my Mary. And then we asked Sarah up for a week, and the week grew into a month, and one thing led to another, until she was just one of ourselves.

I was blue ribbon at that time, and we were putting a little money by, and all was as bright as a new dollar. My God, whoever would have thought that it could have come to this? Whoever would have dreamed it?

I used to be home for the week-ends very often, and sometimes if the ship were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at a time, and in this way I saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah. She was a fine tall woman, black and quick and fierce, with a proud way of carrying her head, and a glint from her eye like a spark from a flint. But when little Mary was there I had never a thought of her, and that I swear as I hope for God’s mercy.

It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with me, or to coax me out for a walk with her, but I had never thought anything of that. But one evening my eyes were opened. I had come up from the ship and found my wife out, but Sarah at home. “Where’s Mary?” I asked. “Oh, she has gone to pay some accounts.” I was impatient and paced up and down the room. “Can’t you be happy for five minutes without Mary, Jim?” says she. “It’s a bad compliment to me that you can’t be contented with my society for so short a time.” “That’s all right, my lass,” said I, putting out my hand towards her in a kindly way, but she had it in both hers in an instant, and they burned as if they were in a fever. I looked into her eyes and I read it all there. There was no need for her to speak, nor for me either. I frowned and drew my hand away. Then she stood by my side in silence for a bit, and then put up her hand and patted me on the shoulder. “Steady old Jim!” said she, and with a kind o’ mocking laugh, she ran out of the room.

‘But what DO you believe in?’ she insisted.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Nothing, like all the men I’ve ever known,’ she said.

They were both silent. Then he roused himself and said:

‘Yes, I do believe in something. I believe in being warmhearted. I believe especially in being warm–hearted in love, in fucking with a warm heart. I believe if men could fuck with warm hearts, and the women take it warm–heartedly, everything would come all right. It’s all this cold–hearted fucking that is death and idiocy.’

‘But you don’t fuck me cold–heartedly,’ she protested.

‘I don’t want to fuck you at all. My heart’s as cold as cold potatoes just now.’

‘Oh!’ she said, kissing him mockingly. ‘Let’s have them SAUTES.’ He laughed, and sat erect.

‘It’s a fact!’ he said. ‘Anything for a bit of warm–heartedness. But the women don’t like it. Even you don’t really like it. You like good, sharp, piercing cold–hearted fucking, and then pretending it’s all sugar. Where’s your tenderness for me? You’re as suspicious of me as a cat is of a dog. I tell you it takes two even to be tender and warm–hearted. You love fucking all right: but you want it to be called something grand and mysterious, just to flatter your own self–importance. Your own self–importance is more to you, fifty times more, than any man, or being together with a man.’

‘But that’s what I’d say of you. Your own self–importance is everything to you.’

‘Ay! Very well then!’ he said, moving as if he wanted to rise. ‘Let’s keep apart then. I’d rather die than do any more cold–hearted fucking.’

She slid away from him, and he stood up.

‘And do you think I want it?’ she said.

‘I hope you don’t,’ he replied. ‘But anyhow, you go to bed an’ I’ll sleep down here.’

She looked at him. He was pale, his brows were sullen, he was as distant in recoil as the cold pole. Men were all alike.

‘I can’t go home till morning,’ she said.

‘No! Go to bed. It’s a quarter to one.’

‘I certainly won’t,’ she said.

He went across and picked up his boots.

‘Then I’ll go out!’ he said.

He began to put on his boots. She stared at him.

‘Wait!’ she faltered. ‘Wait! What’s come between us?’

He was bent over, lacing his boot, and did not reply. The moments passed. A dimness came over her, like a swoon. All her consciousness died, and she stood there wide–eyed, looking at him from the unknown, knowing nothing any more.

He looked up, because of the silence, and saw her wide–eyed and lost. And as if a wind tossed him he got up and hobbled over to her, one shoe off and one shoe on, and took her in his arms, pressing her against his body, which somehow felt hurt right through. And there he held her, and there she remained.