The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK ®. R. Austin Freeman
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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 closed 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, as he turned on to his beat; “and you’d better let us have it. Good night, sir.”
He strolled off towards Henry Street, while Thorndyke and I resumed our journey southward.
“Why were you so secret about that projectile?” I asked my friend as we walked up the street.
“Partly to avoid discussion with the caretaker,” he replied; “but principally because I thought it likely that a constable would pass the house and, seeing the light, come in to make inquiries.”
“And then?”
“Then I should have had to hand over the object to him.”
“And why not? Is the object a specially interesting one?”
“It is highly interesting to me at the present moment,” replied Thorndyke, with a chuckle, “because I have not examined it. I have a theory as to its nature, which theory I should like to test before taking the police into my confidence.”
“Are you going to take me into your confidence?” I asked.
“When we get home, if you are not too sleepy,” he replied.
On our arrival at his chambers, Thorndyke desired me to light up and clear one end of the table while he went up to the workshop to fetch some tools. I turned back the table cover, and, having adjusted the gas so as to light this part of the table, waited in some impatience for my colleague’s return. In a few minutes he re-entered bearing a small vice, a metal saw and a wide-mouthed bottle.
“What have you got in that bottle?” I asked, perceiving a metal object inside it.
“That is the projectile, which I have thought fit to rinse in distilled water, for reasons that will presently appear.”
He agitated the bottle gently for a minute or so, and then, with a pair of dissecting forceps, lifted out the object and held it above the surface of the water to drain, after which he laid it carefully on a piece of blotting-paper.
I stooped over the projectile and examined it with great curiosity, while Thorndyke stood by regarding me with almost equal interest.
“Well,” he said, after watching me in silence for some time,