and glanced up the little street, I saw a man on a bicycle gliding swiftly and silently towards Little James' Street.
With a mighty shout of "Stop thief!" I started in hot pursuit, but, though the man's feet were moving in an apparently leisurely manner, he drew ahead at an astonishing pace, in spite of my efforts to overtake him; and it then dawned upon me that the slow revolutions of his feet were due, in reality, to the unusually high gear of the machine that he was riding. As I realised this, and at the same moment recalled the bicycle that we had seen in the station, the fugitive swung round into Little James' Street and vanished.
The speed at which the man was travelling made further pursuit utterly futile, so I turned and walked back, panting and perspiring from the unwonted exertion. As I re-entered Henry Street, Thorndyke emerged from the mews and halted on seeing me.
"Cyclist?" he asked laconically, as I came up.
"Yes," I answered; "riding a machine geared up to about ninety."
"Ah! he must have followed us from the station," said Thorndyke. "Did you notice if he was carrying anything?"
"He had a walking-stick in his hand. I didn't see anything else."
"What sort of walking-stick?"
"I couldn't see very distinctly. It was a stoutish stick—I should say a Malacca, probably—and it had what looked like a horn handle. I could see that as he passed a street lamp."
"What kind of lamp had he?"
"I couldn't see; but, as he turned the corner, I noticed that it seemed to burn very dimly."
"A little vaseline, or even oil, smeared on the outside of the glass will reduce the glare of a lamp very appreciably," my companion remarked, "especially on a dusty road. Ha! here is the proprietor of the broken window. He wants to know, you know."
We had once more turned into John Street and now perceived a man, standing on the wide doorstep of the house with the shattered window, looking anxiously up and down the street.
"Do either of you gents know anything about this here?" he asked, pointing to the broken pane.
"Yes," said Thorndyke, "we happened to be passing when it was done; in fact," he added, "I rather suspect that the missile, whatever it was, was intended for our benefit."
"Oh!" said the man. "Who done it?"
"That I can't say," replied Thorndyke. "Whoever he was, he made off on a bicycle and we were unable to catch him."
"Oh!" said the man once more, regarding us with growing suspicion. "On a bicycle, hay! Dam funny, ain't it? What did he do it with?"
"That is what I should like to find out," said Thorndyke. "I see this house is empty."
"Yes, it's empty—leastways it's to let. I'm the caretaker. But what's that got to do with it?"
"Merely this," answered Thorndyke, "that the object—stone, bullet or whatever it may have been—was aimed, I believe, at me, and I should like to ascertain its nature. Would you do me the favour of permitting me to look for it?"
The caretaker was evidently inclined to refuse this request, for he glanced suspiciously from my companion to me once or twice before replying, but, at length, he turned towards the open door and gruffly invited us to enter.
A paraffin lamp was on the floor in a recess of the hall, and this our conductor took up when he had elosed the street door.
"This is the room," he said, turning the key and thrusting the door open; "the library they call it, but it's the front parlour in plain English." He entered and, holding the lamp above his head, stared balefully at the broken window.
Thorndyke glanced quickly along the floor in the direction that the missile would have taken, and then said—
"Do you see any mark on the wall there?"
As he spoke, he indicated the wall opposite the window, which obviously could not have been struck by a projectile entering with such extreme obliquity; and I was about to point out this fact when I fortunately remembered the great virtue of silence.
Our friend approached the wall, still holding up the lamp, and scrutinised the surface with close attention; and while he was thus engaged, I observed Thorndyke stoop quickly and pick up something, which he deposited carefully, and without remark, in his waistcoat pocket.
"I don't see no bruise anywhere," said the caretaker, sweeping his hand over the wall.
"Perhaps the thing struck this wall," suggested Thorndyke, pointing to the one that was actually in the line of fire. "Yes, of course," he added, "it would be this one—the shot came from Henry Street."
The caretaker crossed the room and threw the light of his lamp on the wall thus indicated.
"Ah! here we are!" he exclaimed, with gloomy satisfaction, pointing to a small dent in which the wall-paper was turned back and the plaster exposed; "looks almost like a bullet mark, but you say you didn't hear no report."
"No," said Thorndyke, "there was no report; it must have been a catapult."
The caretaker set the lamp down on the floor and proceeded to grope about for the projectile, in which operation we both assisted; and I could not suppress a faint smile as I noted the earnestness with which Thorndyke peered about the floor in search of the missile that was quietly reposing in his waistcoat pocket.
We were deep in our investigations when there was heard an uncompromising double knock at the street door, followed by the loud pealing of a bell in the basement.
"Bobby, I suppose," growled the caretaker. "Here's a blooming fuss about nothing." He caught up the lamp and went out, leaving us in the dark.
"I picked it up, you know," said Thorndyke, when we were alone.
"I saw you," I answered.
"Good; I applaud your discretion," he rejoined. The caretaker's supposition was correct. When he returned, he was accompanied by a burly constable, who saluted us with a cheerful smile and glanced facetiously round the empty room.
"Our boys," said he, nodding towards the broken window; "they're playful lads, that they are. You were passing when it happened, sir, I hear."
"Yes," answered Thorndyke; and he gave the constable a brief account of the occurrence, which the latter listened to, notebook in hand.
"Well," said he when the narrative was concluded, "if those hooligan boys are going to take to catapults they'll make things lively all round."
"You ought to run some of 'em in," said the caretaker.
"Run 'em in!" exclaimed the constable in a tone of disgust; "yes! And then the magistrate will tell 'em to be good boys and give 'em five shillings out of the poor-box to buy illustrated Testaments. I'd Testament them, the worthless varmints!"
He rammed his notebook fiercely into his pocket and stalked out of the room into the street, whither we followed.
"You'll find that bullet or stone when you sweep up the room," he said,
