All this agrees exactly with what the old woman told the police sergeant in Greenwich." The Assistant Commissioner, still with his face turned to the window, expressed his doubt as to these two men having had anything to do with the outrage.

All this theory rested upon the utterances of an old charwoman who had been nearly knocked down by a man in a hurry.

Not a very substantial authority indeed, unless on the ground of sudden inspiration, which was hardly tenable.
"Frankly now, could she have been really inspired ?" he queried, with grave irony, keeping his back to the room, as if entranced by the contemplation of the town's colossal forms half lost in the night.

He did not even look round when he heard the mutter of the word "Providential" from the principal subordinate of his department, whose name, printed sometimes in the papers, was familiar to the great public as that of one of its zealous and hard-working protectors.

Chief Inspector Heat raised his voice a little.
"Strips and bits of bright tin were quite visible to me," he said.
"That's a pretty good corroboration." "And these men came from that little country station," the Assistant Commissioner mused aloud, wondering.