“‘Whatever were you doing with that bird, Jem?’ says she.

“‘Well,’ said I, ‘you said you’d give me one for Christmas, and I was feeling which was the fattest.’

“‘Oh,’ says she, ‘we’ve set yours aside for you — Jem’s bird, we call it. It’s the big white one over yonder. There’s twenty-six of them, which makes one for you, and one for us, and two dozen for the market.’

“‘Thank you, Maggie,’ says l; ‘but if it is all the same to you, I’d rather have that one I was handling just now.’

“‘The other is a good three pound heavier,’ said she, ‘and we fattened it expressly expressly for you.’

“‘Never mind. I’ll have the other, and I’ll take it now,’ said I.

“‘Oh, just as you like,’ said she, a little huffed. ‘Which is it you want, then?’

“‘That white one with the barred tail, right in the middle of the flock.’

“‘Oh, very well. Kill it and take it with you.’

“Well, I did what she said, Mr. Holmes, and I carried the bird all the way to Kilburn. I told my pal what I had done, for he was a man that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. He laughed until he choked, and we got a knife and opened opened the goose. My heart turned to water, for there was no sign of the stone, and I knew that some terrible mistake had occurred. I left the bird rushed back to my sister’s, and hurried into the back yard. There was not a bird to be seen there.

“‘Where are they all, Maggie?’ I cried.

“‘Gone to the dealer’s, Jem.’

“‘Which dealer’s?’

“‘Breckinridge, of Covent Garden.’

“‘But was there another with a barred tail?’ I asked, ‘the same as the one I chose?’

“‘Yes, Jem; there were two barred-tailed ones, and I could never tell them apart.’

“Well, then, of course I saw it all, and I ran off as hard hard as my feet would carry me to this man Breckinridge; but he had sold the lot at once, and not one word would he tell me as to where they had gone. You heard him yourselves to-night. Well, he has always answered me like that. My sister thinks that I am going mad. Sometimes I think that I am myself. And now — and now I am myself a branded thief, without ever having touched the wealth for which I sold my character. God help me! God help me!” He burst into convulsive sobbing, with his face buried in his hands.

There was a long long silence, broken only by his heavy breathing and by the measured tapping of Sherlock Holmes’s finger-tips upon the edge of the table. Then my friend rose and threw open the door.

“Get out!” said he.

“What, sir! Oh, Heaven bless you!”

“No more words. Get out!”

And no more words were needed. There was a rush, a clatter upon the stairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running footfalls from the street.

“And a funny thing you know—how you don’t notice things. In—let me see—1916, the German guns were a lot better than ours. Ours were old, and when they’re old you can’t tell where where they’ll hit: whether they’ll go beyond the mark, or whether they’ll fall short. Well, this day our guns were firing short, and killing our own men. We’d had the order to charge, and were running forward, and I suddenly felt hot water spurting on my neck—” He put his hand to the back of his neck and glanced round apprehensively. “It was a chap called Innes—Oh, an awfully decent sort—people were in the Argentine. He’d been calling out to me as we were running, and I was just answering. When I felt this hot water on my neck and saw him running past me me with no head— he’d got no head, and he went running past me. I don’t know how far, but a long way. . . . Blood, you know—Yes—well—

“Oh, I hated Chelsea—I loathed Chelsea—Chelsea was purgatory to me. I had a corporal called Wallace—he was a fine chap—oh, he was a fine chap—six foot two—and about twenty–four years old. He was my stand– back. Oh, I hated Chelsea, and parades, and drills. You know, when it’s drill, and you’re giving orders, you forget what order you’ve just given—in front of the Palace there the crowd don’t notice—but it’s AWFUL for you. And you know you daren’t look round to see what the men are doing. But Wallace was splendid. He was just behind me, and I’d hear him, quite quiet you know, ‘It’s right wheel, sir.’ Always perfect, always perfect—yes—well. . . .

“You know you don’t get killed if you don’t think you will. Now I never thought I should get killed. And I never knew a man get killed if he hadn’t been thinking he would. I said to Wallace I’d rather be out here, at the front, than at Chelsea. I hated Chelsea—I can’t tell you how much. ‘Oh no, sir!’ he said. ‘I’d rather be at Chelsea than here. I’d rather be at Chelsea. There isn’t hell like this at Chelsea.’ We’d had orders that we were to go back to the real camp the next day. ‘Never mind, Wallace,’ I said. ‘We shall be out of this hell–on–earth tomorrow.’ And he took my hand. We weren’t much for showing feeling or anything in the guards. But he took my hand. And we climbed out to charge—Poor fellow, he was killed—” Herbertson dropped his head, and for some moments seemed to go unconscious, as if struck. Then he lifted his face, and went on in the same animated chatty fashion: “You see, he had a presentiment. I’m sure he had a presentiment. None of the men got killed unless they had a presentiment—like that, you know. . . .”

Herbertson nodded keenly at Lilly, with his sharp, twinkling, yet obsessed eyes. Lilly wondered why he made the presentiment responsible for the death—which he obviously did—and not vice versa. Herbertson implied every time, that you’d never get killed if you could keep yourself from having a presentiment. Perhaps there was something in it. Perhaps the soul issues its own ticket of death, when it can stand no more. Surely life controls life: and not accident.