He took it even more seriously than I had expected. It was even with scant patience that he heard me out. "But good heavens, man," he cried, "why didn't you tell me all this sooner? Don't you see that it's what I've been expecting, what I've been watching the papers for month after month? It puts my experience clear of all doubt. I have felt certain--as certain as I am standing here--that sooner or later some accident of this sort would turn up." "It was a good fifteen miles from here," I said. "Besides----" "What's fifteen miles? I don't care if it was fifty! Have you got the cutting with you?" I had. I had torn off the corner with the paragraph, unobserved of my reporter friend, and I took the fragment now from my pocketbook and gave it to Lessing. He read it through eagerly. "The facts correspond. The man was killed in the open; he had no chance of shelter. The thing hit him as he was riding." "It's not proved." "There's the damage to the bicycle." "There's exactly that," I said, "which to my mind puts a different light on the whole thing. If the impact of the blow was sufficient to damage the bicycle to that extent, how was it that the rider escaped all injury except a single scratch on the face? It's out of all reason. There were no marks on the body. That is testified to. If a man is knocked off his bicycle while riding at even an average speed, he'll have some marks to show for it. He died from heart failure, probably resultant upon fright and the shock of the wound. Very good. But that doesn't account for the bicycle. It seems to me that whatever attacked him wreaked its spite on the machine afterwards." "He had time to dismount?" "Possibly. It doesn't say how near to the bicycle he was lying. If he fell at all he must have fallen clear of it. The lamp was picked up several yards away." "The lamp..." said Lessing. The same thought was in both our minds. "What date did this happen?" he asked. "It was a week-old paper. I was there ... wait a moment." I made a rough calculation in my mind. "This happened, apparently, on the Thursday previous. That should bring it to about the third of the month." "The third was a Thursday," said Lessing. He pulled out an almanac from the bookshelves and ran the pages over. I saw him frown. "There was a full moon on that evening. It is just possible he was riding without a light at all. If so, that throws my whole theory out." "The whole thing," said I, "looks to me like the work of a maniac. Take the lamp. It was picked up some yards away. Now a bicycle lantern isn't merely hung on; it's screwed on, and you can't imagine any sort of blow struck from above that would dislodge it and throw it that distance. It must have been either unscrewed or torn off, deliberately, and that in itself suggests human agency." Lessing barely heard me. He was staring at the scrap of paper spread out on his knee.