I'll show you where he died, and how easy it was for the
murderer to kill him and get away unobserved."

He pulled the cab up at the corner of the High Street, and turned
southward towards the river, looking round at his companion with one of
his sly smiles.

"I daresay that you, being a Yorkshireman, Mr. Allerdyke, know all about
this old street," he remarked as they walked forward. "I never saw it,
never heard of it, until the other day, when I was sent down on this
Lydenberg business, but it struck me at once. I should think it's one of
the oldest streets left in England."

"It is," answered Allerdyke. "I know it well enough, and I've seen it
changed. It used to be the street of the old Hull merchants--they had
their houses and warehouses all combined, with gardens at the back
running down to the river Hull. Queer old places there used to be in this
street, I can tell you when I was a lad!--of late years they've pulled a
lot of property down that had got what you might call thoroughly
worm-eaten--oh, yes, the place isn't half as ancient or picturesque as it
was even twenty years ago!"

"There's plenty of the ancient about it still, for all that," observed
Chettle, with a dry laugh. "There was more than enough of it for
Lydenberg the other day, at any rate. Now, then, you remember what it
said on the postcard--he was to walk down the High Street, on the
left-hand side, at eleven o'clock? Very well--down the High Street he
walks, on this side which we are now--he strolls along, by these old
houses, looking about him, of course, for the person he was to meet. The
few people who were about down here that morning, and who saw him, said
that he was looking about from side to side. And all of a sudden a shot
rang out, and Lydenberg fell--just here--right on this very pavement."

He pulled Allerdyke up in a narrow part of the old street, jointed to
the flags, and then to the house behind them--an ancient, ramshackle
place, the doors and windows of which were boarded up, the entire fabric
of which showed unmistakable readiness for the pick and shovel of the
house-breaker. And he laid a hand on one of the shattered windows, close
by a big hole in the decaying wood.

"There's no doubt the murderer was hidden behind this shutter, and that
he fired at Lydenberg from it, through this hole," he said. "So, you see,
he'd only be a few feet from his man. He was evidently a good shot, and a
fellow of resolute nerve, for he made