genious and capable man."

I was fain to laugh at his enthusiastic appreciation of the methods of
his would-be assassin, and the humour of the situation then appeared to
dawn on him, for he said, with an apologetic smile--

"I am not expressing approval, you must understand, but merely
professional admiration. It is this class of criminal that creates the
necessity for my services. He is my patron, so to speak; my ultimate
employer. For the common crook can be dealt with quite efficiently by
the common policeman!"

While he was speaking he had been fitting the little cylinder between
two pads of tissue-paper in the vice, which he now screwed up tight.
Then, with the fine metal saw, he began to cut the projectile,
lengthwise, into two slightly unequal parts. This operation took some
time, especially since he was careful not to cut the loose body inside,
but at length the section was completed and the interior of the cylinder
exposed, when he released it from the vice and held it up before me with
an expression of triumph.

"Now, what do you make it?" he demanded.

I took the object in my fingers and looked at it closely, but was at
first more puzzled than before. The loose body I now saw to be a
cylinder of lead about half an inch long, accurately fitting the inside
of the cylinder but capable of slipping freely backwards and forwards.
The steel point which I had noticed in the hole at the apex of the
conical end, was now seen to be the pointed termination of a slender
steel rod which projected fully an inch into the cavity of the cylinder,
and the conical end itself was a solid mass of lead.

"Well?" queried Thorndyke, seeing that I was still silent.

"You tell me it is not an explosive bullet," I replied, "otherwise I
should have been confirmed in that opinion. I should have said that the
percussion cap was carried by this lead plunger and struck on the end of
that steel rod when the flight of the bullet was suddenly arrested."

"Very good indeed," said Thorndyke. "You are right so far that this is,
in fact, the mechanism of a percussion shell.

"But look at this. You see this little rod was driven inside the bullet
when the latter struck the wall. Let us replace it in its original
position."

He laid the end of a small flat file against the end of the rod and
pressed it firmly, when the rod slid through the hole until it projected
an inch beyond the apex of the cone. Then he handed the projectile back
to m