Indeed,
I share your righteous indignation at this dastardly affair. So you
mustn't think me brutal for putting the case so plainly."

"I don't. You have only shown me the danger that I was fool enough not
to see. But you seem to imply that this hideous position has been
brought about deliberately."

"Certainly I do! This is no chance affair. Either the appearances
indicate the real events--which I am sure they do not--or they have
been created of a set purpose to lead to false conclusions. But the
circumstances convince me that there has been a deliberate plot; and I
am waiting--in no spirit of Christian patience, I can tell you--to lay
my hand on the wretch who has done this."

"What are you waiting for?" I asked.

"I am waiting for the inevitable," he replied; "for the false move that
the most artful criminal invariably makes. At present he is lying low;
but presently he will make a move, and then I shall have him."

"But he may go on lying low. What will you do then?"

"Yes, that is the danger. We may have to deal with the perfect villain
who knows when to leave well alone. I have never met him, but he may
exist, nevertheless."

"And then we should have to stand by and see our friends go under."

"Perhaps," said Thorndyke; and we both subsided into gloomy and silent
reflection.

The place was peaceful and quiet, as only a backwater of London can be.
Occasional hoots from far-away tugs and steamers told of the busy life
down below in the crowded Pool. A faint hum of traffic was borne in
from the streets outside the precincts, and the shrill voices of
newspaper boys came in unceasing chorus from the direction of Carmelite
Street. They were too far away to be physically disturbing, but the
excited yells, toned down as they were by distance, nevertheless
stirred the very marrow in my bones, so dreadfully suggestive were they
of those possibilities of the future at which Thorndyke had hinted.
They seemed like the sinister shadows of coming misfortunes.

Perhaps they called up the same association of ideas in Thorndyke's
mind, for he remarked presently:

"The newsvendor is abroad to-night like a bird of ill-omen. Something
unusual has happened; some public or private calamity, most likely, and
these yelling ghouls are out to feast on the remains. The newspaper
men have a good deal in common with the carrion-birds that hover over a
battle-field."

Again we subsided into silence and reflection