Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a rending, tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon its side and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed the light of a lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish face, which looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either side of the aperture, drew itself shoulderhigh and waist-high, until one knee rested upon the edge. In another instant he stood at the side of the hole and was hauling after him a companion, lithe and small like himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red hair.

“It’s all clear,” he whispered. “Have you the chisel and the bags? Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I’ll swing for it!”

Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes’s hunting crop came down on the man’s wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.

“It’s no use, John Clay,” said Holmes blandly. “You have no chance at all.”

“So all I see,” the other answered with the utmost coolness. “I fancy that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his coat-tails.”

“There are three men waiting for him at the door,” said Holmes.

“Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely. I must compliment you.”

“And I you,” Holmes answered. “Your red-headed idea was very new and effective.”

“You’ll see your pal again presently,” said Jones. “He’s quicker at climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out while I fix the derbies.”

“I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands,” remarked our prisoner as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. “You may not be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have the goodness, also, when you address me always to say ‘sir’ and ‘please.’”

“All right,” said Jones with a stare and a snigger. “Well, would you please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry your Highness to the police-station?”

“That is better,” said John Clay serenely. He made a sweeping bow to the three of us and walked quietly off in the custody of the detective.

“Really, Mr. Holmes,” said Mr. Merryweather as we followed them from the cellar, “I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you. There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most complete manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery that have ever come within my experience.”

“I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr. John Clay,” said Holmes. “I have been at some small expense over this matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond that I am amply repaid by having had an experience which is in many ways unique, and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of the Red-headed League.”

“They’re going to try it—and they’ll come out if it isn’t satisfactory.”

“The butties won’t have it, I know,” she said. He gave a short laugh, and went on with his meal.

The two children were squatted on the floor by the tree. They had a wooden box, from which they had taken many little newspaper packets, which they were spreading out like wares.

“Don’t open any. We won’t open any of them till we’ve taken them all out—and then we’ll undo one in our turns. Then we s’ll both undo equal,” Millicent was saying.

“Yes, we’ll take them ALL out first,” re–echoed Marjory.

“And what are they going to do about Job Arthur Freer? Do they want him?” A faint smile came on her husband’s face.

“Nay, I don’t know what they want.—Some of ’em want him—whether they’re a majority, I don’t know.”

She watched him closely.

“Majority! I’d give ’em majority. They want to get rid of you, and make a fool of you, and you want to break your heart over it. Strikes me you need something to break your heart over.”

He laughed silently.

“Nay,” he said. “I s’ll never break my heart.”

“You’ll go nearer to it over that, than over anything else: just because a lot of ignorant monkeys want a monkey of their own sort to do the Union work, and jabber to them, they want to get rid of you, and you eat your heart out about it. More fool you, that’s all I say—more fool you. If you cared for your wife and children half what you care about your Union, you’d be a lot better pleased in the end. But you care about nothing but a lot of ignorant colliers, who don’t know what they want except it’s more money just for themselves. Self, self, self—that’s all it is with them—and ignorance.”

“You’d rather have self without ignorance?” he said, smiling finely.

“I would, if I’ve got to have it. But what I should like to see is a man that has thought for others, and isn’t all self and politics.”

Her color had risen, her hand trembled with anger as she sewed. A blank look had come over the man’s face, as if he did not hear or heed any more. He drank his tea in a long draught, wiped his moustache with two fingers, and sat looking abstractedly at the children.

They had laid all the little packets on the floor, and Millicent was saying:

“Now I’ll undo the first, and you can have the second. I’ll take this—”

She unwrapped the bit of newspaper and disclosed a silvery ornament for a Christmas tree: a frail thing like a silver plum, with deep rosy indentations on each side.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t it LOVELY!” Her fingers cautiously held the long bubble of silver and glowing rose, cleaving to it with a curious, irritating possession. The man’s eyes moved away from her. The lesser child was fumbling with one of the little packets.