Read "The Mysterious Three" by William le Queux online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Take it from me. It is not pleasant to be wounded, even in a good cause.
To be shot in the back by a man standing upon a roof, with a scatter-gun, is not merely physically painful; it is, in addition, humiliating, because it also wounds one's _amour propre_.