suddenly that the sixth and last flash of the machine had come and
gone just as I stood poising myself on the ledge of the window-sill;
and I thought to myself--rightly as it turned out--this additional
evidence would only strengthen the belief in the public mind that
Mr. Callingham had been murdered by the man whom the servants saw
escaping from the window.

"The rest, my child, you know pretty well already. In a panic on
your account, I scrambled over the wall, tearing my hands as I went
with that nasty-bottle glass, reached my bicycle outside, and made
off, not for the country, but for the inn where they were holding
the coroner's inquest. My left hand I had to hold, tied up in my
handkerchief to stop the bleeding, in the pocket of my jacket: but I
thought this the best way, all the same, to escape detection. And,
indeed, instead of being, as I feared, the only man there in
bicycling dress and knickerbockers, I found the occasion had
positively attracted all the cyclists of the neighbourhood. Each man
went there to show his own innocence of fear or suspicion. A good
dozen or two of bicyclists stood gathered already in the body of the
room in the same incriminating costume. So I found safety in
numbers. Even the servants who had seen me disappear through the
window, though their eyes lighted upon me more than once, never for
a moment seemed to suspect me. And I know very well why. When I
stand up, I'm the straightest and most perpendicular man that ever
walked erect. But when I poise to jump, I bend my spine so much that
I produce the impression of being almost hump-backed. It was that
attitude you recognised in me when I jumped from the window just
now."

"Why, Jack," I cried clinging to him in a perfect whirlwind of