His clothes were muddy, his left arm was in a sling, and a black handkerchief under his hat evidently concealed a bandage.
"I am not really hurt at all," Thorndyke replied cheerily, "though very disreputable to look at.

Just came a cropper in the mud, Jervis," he added, as he noted my dismayed expression.

"Dinner and a clothes-brush are what I chiefly need." Nevertheless, he looked very pale and shaken when he came into the light on the landing, and he sank into his easy-chair in the limp manner of a man either very weak or very fatigued.
"How did it happen ?" I asked when Polton had crept away on tip-toe to make ready for dinner.
Thorndyke looked round to make sure that his henchman had departed, and said-- "A queer affair, Jervis; a very odd affair indeed.

I was coming up from the Borough, picking my way mighty carefully across the road on account of the greasy, slippery mud, and had just reached the foot of London Bridge when I heard a heavy lorry coming down the slope a good deal too fast, considering that it was impossible to see more than a dozen yards ahead, and I stopped on the kerb to see it safely past.

Just as the horses emerged from the fog, a man came up behind and lurched violently against me and, strangely enough, at the same moment passed his foot in front of mine.