silent appearance on the stairs leading
from the laboratory, giving me quite a start; and I was about to retire
into the room when my ear caught the tinkle of a hansom approaching from
Paper Buildings.

The vehicle drew nearer, and at length stopped opposite the house, on
which Polton slid down the stairs with the agility of a harlequin. A few
moments later I heard his voice ascending from the hall--

"I do hope, sir, you're not much hurt?"

I ran down the stairs and met Thorndyke coming up slowly with his right
hand on Polton's shoulder. His clothes were muddy, his left arm was in a
sling, and a black handkerchief under his hat evidently concealed a
bandage.

"I am not really hurt at all," Thorndyke replied cheerily, "though very
disreputable to look at. Just came a cropper in the mud, Jervis," he
added, as he noted my dismayed expression. "Dinner and a clothes-brush
are what I chiefly need." Nevertheless, he looked very pale and shaken
when he came into the light on the landing, and he sank into his
easy-chair in the limp manner of a man either very weak or very
fatigued.

"How did it happen?" I asked when Polton had crept away on tip-toe to
make ready for dinner.

Thorndyke looked round to make sure that his henchman had departed, and
said--

"A queer affair, Jervis; a very odd affair indeed. I was coming up from
the Borough, picking my way mighty carefully across the road on account
of the greasy, slippery mud, and had just reached the foot of London
Bridge when I heard a heavy lorry coming down the slope a good deal too
fast, considering that it was impossible to see more than a dozen yards
ahead, and I stopped on the kerb to see it safely past. Just as the
horses emerged from the fog, a man came up behind and lurched violently
against me and, strangely enough, at the same moment passed his foot in
front of mine. Of course I went sprawling into the road right in front
of the lorry. The horses came stamping and sliding straight on to me,
and, before I could wriggle out of the way, the hoof of one of them
smashed in my hat--that was a new one that I came home in--and
half-stunned me. Then the near wheel struck my head, making a dirty
little scalp wound, and pinned down my sleeve so that I couldn't pull
away my arm, which is consequently barked all the way down. It was a
mighty near thing, Jervis; another inch or two and I should have been
rolled out as flat as a starfish."

"What became of the man?" I ask