“You heard nobody about?” asked Wendover.
“Nothing but the beat of the engine. Just as I got to the entrance and was going inside, I heard an air-gun go off quite close to me—no distance at all, I should say—and I felt something hit me about the breast-pocket.”
Sir Clinton leaned forward.
“Don’t touch!” he said, pointing to the side of Arthur’s dinner-jacket. “You hadn’t a coat on, I see?”
Arthur looked down. The feathering of one of the lethal darts was protruding from his jacket.
“Oh, it stuck, did it?” he said. “I thought it had failed to get through the cloth. It’s driven into my leather cigar-case, I expect.”
Sir Clinton made a rapid examination and then cautiously withdrew the dart. Inspection of the cigar-case showed that the point of the missile had embedded itself in one of the cigars.
“That saved you a nasty prick,” was all the comment the Chief Constable made. “Let’s hear the rest.”
“I was just going to start after the beggar,” Arthur went on, “when suddenly there was a yell from the road. When I looked round, there was old Mrs. Thornton having a fit of hysterics or something over on the road, right in the beam of the headlights.”
“Who is Mrs. Thornton?” inquired Sir Clinton.