eyne Row. The houses at this
point are divided from the Embankment by the narrow garden which contains
the Carlyle statue. He had turned up Cheyne Row, at the back of the
statue, but before turning he had noticed a man on the seat facing the
river on the far side of the garden. The man was sitting down, but he was
said to have turned round and watched the policeman as he passed along
Cheyne Walk. There might have been a second man lying on that seat, or
crouching on the flags between the seat and the parapet, but he would have
been invisible from the beat. Not another creature was in sight anywhere.
Yet the policeman swore that he had not proceeded a dozen yards up Cheyne
Row before the shot was fired. He had turned round actually in time to
see the puff of smoke dispersing over the parapet. It was all he saw. He
had found the deceased lying in a heap, nearer the seat than the parapet,
but between the two. Not another soul did he see, or had he seen. And he
had not neglected to look over the parapet into the river, and along the
foreshore in both directions, without discovering sign or trace of human
being.

Such was the story which Phillida found so hard to credit that she
proceeded to the spot in order to go over the ground for her own
satisfaction. This did not make it easier to understand. It had come on
to rain heavily while she was in the shop; the shining Embankment was
again practically deserted, and she was able to carry out her experiment
without exciting observation. She took a dozen steps up Cheyne Row,
pretended she heard the shot, turned sharp round, and quite realised that
from where she was the body could not have been seen, hidden as it must
have been by the seat, which itself was almost hidden by the long and
narrow island of enclosed garden. But a running man could have been seen
through the garden, even if he stooped as he ran, and the murderer must
have run like the wind to get away as he had done. The gates through the
garden, back and front of the statue, had not been opened for the day when
the murder took place, so Phillida in her turn made a half-circuit of the
island to get to the spot where the body had been found, but without
taking her eyes off the spot until she reached it. No! It was as she had
thought all along; by nothing short of a miracle could the assassin have
escaped observation if the policeman had eyes in his head and had acted as
he swore he had done. He might h