"They won't waste time.
Confound that clock!"
The soft-voiced bell of the Inner Temple clock, mingling with the
harsher tones of St. Dunstan's and the Law Courts, slowly told out the
hour of midnight; and as the last reverberations were dying away, some
metallic object, apparently a coin, dropped with a sharp clink on to the
pavement under our window.
At the sound the watchers simultaneously sprang to their feet.
"You two go first," said the sergeant, addressing the uniformed men, who
thereupon stole noiselessly, in their rubber-soled boots, down the stone
stairs and along the pavement. The rest of us followed, with less
attention to silence, and as we ran up to Thorndyke's chambers, we were
aware of quick but stealthy footsteps on the stairs above.
"They've been at work, you see," whispered one of the constables,
flashing his lantern on to the iron-bound outer door of our
sitting-room, on which the marks of a large jemmy were plainly visible.
The sergeant nodded grimly, and, bidding the constables to remain on the
landing, led the way upwards.
As we ascended, faint rustlings continued to be audible from above, and
on the second-floor landing we met a man descending briskly, but without
hurry, from the third.
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