word of woe.

But then he remembered with relief that he had genuinely recognized
both Rose Euclid and Seven Sachs; and also that Mr. Bryany, among
other documents, had furnished him with a photograph of the Chapel and
surrounding property. The Chapel therefore existed. He had a plan in
his pocket. He now opened this plan and tried to consult it in the
middle of the street, but his agitation was such that he could not
make out on it which was north and which was south. After he had been
nearly prostrated by a taxi-cab, a policeman came up to him and said,
with all the friendly disdain of a London policeman addressing a
provincial:

"Safer to look at that on the pavement, sir!"

Edward Henry glanced up from the plan.

"I was trying to find the Queen's Glasshouse Chapel, officer," said
he. "Have you ever heard of it?"

(In Bursley, members of the Town Council always flattered members
of the Force by addressing them as "officer"; and Edward Henry knew
exactly the effective intonation.)

"It _was there_, sir," said the policeman, less disdainful, pointing
to a narrow hoarding behind which could be seen the back-walls of high
buildings in Shaftesbury Avenue. "They've just finished pulling it
down."

"Thank you," said Edward Henry, quietly, with a superb and successful
effort to keep as much colour in his face as if the policeman had not
dealt him a dizzying blow.

He then walked towards the hoarding, but could scarcely feel the
ground under his feet. From a wide aperture in the palisades a cart
full of earth was emerging; it creaked and shook as it was dragged by
a labouring horse over loose planks into the roadway; a whip-cracking
carter hovered on its flank. Edward Henry approached the aperture and
gazed within. An elegant young man stood solitary inside the hoarding
and stared at a razed expanse of land in whose furthest corner some
navvies were digging a hole....

The site!

But what did this sinister destructive activity mean? Nobody was
entitled to interfere with property on which he, Alderman Machin, held
an unexpired option! But was it the site? He perused the plan again
with more care. Yes, there could be no doubt that it was the site.
His eye roved round and he admitted the justice of the boast that an
electric sign displayed at the southern front corner of the theatre
would be visible from Piccadilly Circus, Lower Regent Street,
Shaftesbury Avenue, etc., etc. He then observed a large notice-board,
r