perhaps?” And though he felt incapable of clear judgment, the idea seemed to him a sound
But he was not destined to go there. For coming out of V⸺ Prospect towards the square, he saw on the left a passage leading between two blank walls to a courtyard. On the right hand, the blank unwhitewashed wall of a four-storied house stretched far into the court; on the left, a wooden hoarding ran parallel with it for twenty paces into the court, and then turned sharply to the left. Here was a deserted fenced-off place where rubbish of different sorts was lying. At the end of the court, the corner of a low, smutty, stone shed, apparently part of some workshop, peeped from behind the hoarding. It was probably a carriage builder’s or carpenter’s shed; the whole place from the entrance was black with coal dust.
Here would be the place to throw it, he thought. Not seeing anyone in the yard, he slipped in, and at once saw near the gate a sink, such as is often put in yards where there are many workmen or cabdrivers; and on the hoarding above had been scribbled in chalk the time-honoured witticism, “Standing here strictly forbidden.” This was all the better, for there would be nothing suspicious about his going in. “Here I could throw it all in a heap and get away!”
Looking round once more, with his hand already in his pocket, he noticed against the outer wall, between the entrance and the sink, a big unhewn stone, weighing perhaps sixty pounds.
The other side of the wall was a street. He could hear passersby, always numerous in that part, but he could not be seen from the entrance, unless someone came in from the street, which might well happen indeed, so there was need of haste.
He bent down over the stone, seized the top of it firmly in both hands, and using all his strength turned it over.