The leather hood of the machine was ripped down at the back, a splinter of glass struck Leon’s cap and sliced a half-moon neatly. He jammed on the brakes, threw open the door of the saloon and leaped out. Behind the car was a mass of wreckage; a great iron casting lay split into three pieces amidst a tangle of broken packing-case. Leon looked up; immediately above the entrance to Oberzohn & Smitts’ was a crane, which had swung out with a heavy load just before Manfred came out. The steel wire hung loosely from the derrick. He heard excited voices speaking from the open doorway three floors above, and two men in large glasses were looking down and gabbling in a language he did not understand. “A very pretty accident. We might have filled half a column in the evening newspapers if we had not moved.” “And the gentleman in the hall—what was he doing?” Leon walked back through the entrance: the man had disappeared, but near where he had been standing was a small bell-push which, it was obvious, had recently been fixed, for the wires ran loosely on the surface of the wall and were new. He came back in time to see a policeman crossing the road. “I wish to find out how this accident occurred, constable,” he said. “My master was nearly killed.” The policeman looked at the ton of debris lying half on the sidewalk, half on the road, then up at the slackened hawser. “The cable has run off the drum, I should think.” “I should think so,” said Leon gravely. He did not wait for the policeman to finish his investigations, but went home at a steady pace, and made no reference to the “accident” until he had put away his car and had returned to Curzon Street. “The man in the hall was put there to signal when you were under the load—certain things must not happen,” he said. “I am going out to make a few inquiries.” Gonsalez knew one of Oberzohn’s staff: a clean young Swede, with that knowledge of English which is normal in Scandinavian countries; and at nine o’clock that night he drifted into a Swedish restaurant in Dean Street and found the young man at the end of his meal. It was an acquaintance—one of many—that Leon had assiduously cultivated. The young man, who knew him as Mr. Heinz—Leon spoke German remarkably well—was glad to have a companion with whom he could discuss the inexplicable accident of the afternoon. “The cable was not fixed to the drum,” he said. “It might have been terrible: there was a gentleman in a motor-car outside, and he had only moved away a few inches when the case fell. There is bad luck in that house. I am glad that I am leaving at the end of the week.” Leon had some important questions to put, but he did not hurry, having the gift of patience to a marked degree. It was nearly ten when they parted, and Gonsalez went back to his garage, where he spent a quarter of an hour.