carrying out his instructions, and here's the corner of the street."
I knew that corner well enough, and the street, too. It was there that I had shadowed White Whiskers and the Newcastle solicitor, and thence that I had retreated after my passage at arms with Bickerdale. Presently we stood before the side door of Bickerdale's shop, the door which presumably led to his house at the rear. There was no light visible through the transom over the door, none in the shop window, none in the windows over the shop. And when the plain-clothes man, in response to the inspector's order, rang the bell and knocked in addition, no reply came.
It was not until we had knocked and rung three times, each more loudly and urgently, that we heard sounds inside the door. They were the sounds of somebody cautiously drawing back a bolt and turning a key. But no light showed through keyhole or letter-box, or the glass in the transom, and the inspector gave his man a whispered instruction.
"Turn your lamp full on whoever opens the door!" he said. "And get a foot over the threshold."
