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The miserable Mr. Timms was crossing the road to intercept them. Even had not Bill Joyner known him, he would have guessed his vocation, for Inspector Timms was so patently a police officer that nothing would have disguised him.

"I say, Lowe, they've seen that Terror again! Tried to break into the house of Judge Warren, the county court judge."

All Mr. Lowe's elaborate boredom fell from him like a cloak.

"When?" he asked quickly.

"Early the night before last. The Judge only reported it late last evening. I tried to 'phone you—but you were out. The local police have been on his track, but they've found nothing. Only car-tracks ... Mendip wheels and oil leakage showing the car must have been left standing for some time."

"Did the Judge see him?"

Timms pursed his lips.

"He says he did, but I guess the old man was scared, and imagined a lot of it. He was going to bed, and was, in fact, in his pyjamas. The night was warm, and one of the windows of his bedroom was open. He pushed open the other and looked out. There was a full moon, and he says that it was almost as light as day, and there, within a foot of him, he saw the Thing. Stripped to the waist and its face turned up to him ... climbing up the ivy. The Judge says he nearly dropped with the shock, and that sounds true. And he gave the same description as the other people have given. Head close-cropped, broad, white-nigger face, big mouth and little eyes, no forehead, and arms...! The Judge says they weren't human. More like the size of legs, all muscled up...."