Part 10 (1/2)

”Tell you the truth, Mr. Headland, I can't fit the description in anywhere among the people here,” he said after a pause. ”Dimmock's fairish-though he has got a moustache, but it's a military one, and Borkins is, of course, smooth shaven. The other men are clean-shaved, too, except for old Doughty, the head gardener, and he wears a full, gray beard. Why?”

Cleek shook his head.

”Nothing important. I was only just wondering. Now then, Lake, you'll be late if you loiter any longer, and our-er-friends will be waiting. Good-bye, Sir Nigel, and good luck. Lunch at one-fifteen, I take it?”

He swung upon his heel and linked his arm with Mr. Narkom's, then, taking his cap from a peg on the hall stand, clapped it on his head and went down and out to the task that awaited him, and a discovery which was, to say the least of it, startling in the extreme.

They walked for some time in comparative silence, puffing at their cigarettes. Then of a sudden, Cleek spoke.

”I say, old man, you'll want to keep a close look-out upon your own personal safety,” he said, abruptly, wheeling round and meeting his friend full in the eyes.

”What d'you mean, C-Headland?”

”What I say. Someone's got wind of our real purpose here. I have a grave suspicion that that Borkins was listening at my door last evening when I was talking to Dollops. Later-well, somebody or other tried to get me in bed. But I was one too many for him-”

”My dear Cleek!”

”Mr. Lake, I beg of you-not so loud!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cleek. ”There are ears everywhere, which you as a policeman ought to know. Do remember my name and don't go losing any sleep over me. I can take care of myself, all right. But I had to do it pretty energetically last night. A thoughtful visitor stabbed the pillow I'd placed in bed instead of my humble self, and cut an incision three inches deep. Hit the mattress, too!”

”Headland, my G.o.d-!”

”Now, don't take on so. I tell you I can take care of myself, but you do the same. No one in the house knows a word about it, and I don't intend that they shall. The less said the better, in a case like this. Only those Frozen Flames are trying to eat up something that is either very serious or very money-making. One thing or the other.... h.e.l.lo, here we are! Mornin' Petrie; mornin' Hammond. All ready for the search I see.”

The two constables, clad in plain clothes and accompanied by Dollops, were holding in their hands long pitchforks which looked more as if they were ready for haymaking than for the gruesome task ahead of them all. Petrie carried upon his arm a roll of rope. They swung into step behind the detectives, across the uneven, marshy ground.

It was a chilly morning, and inclined to rain. Across the flat horizon the mist hung in wraithlike forms of cloudy gray, and the deep gra.s.s into which they plunged their feet was beaded with dew. For a time they walked on quietly until they had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile. Then Cleek halted.

”Better separate here,” he said, waving his arm out across the sweep of flat country. ”Dollops, you take the right with Petrie. Hammond, you'd better try the left. Mr. Narkom and I will go straight ahead together. Any discovery made, just give the usual signal.”

They separated at once, their feet upon the thick marshy ground leaving numberless footprints in the moist rank gra.s.s, which crushed under them like wet hay. Their heads were bent, their eyes fixed upon the ground, their faces bearing a look of utter concentration. Cleek watched them moving slowly across the wide, flat reaches of the Fens, stopping now and then to poke among the rank marsh-gra.s.s, and prod into the earth, and then turned to Mr. Narkom.

”Good fellows-those three,” he said with a smile. ”What more can you ask than that? Straight ahead for us, Mr. Narkom. Sir Nigel tells me the patch of charred gra.s.s lies in a direct line with the edge of the Fens where we started our search. I'm keen to have a look at it.”

Mr. Narkom nodded, and walked on, poking here and there with his stout walking stick. Cleek did likewise. They rarely spoke, simply pushed and poked and trod the gra.s.s down; searching, searching, searching, as had those other men upon the night of Dacre Wynne's disappearance. But they had searched in vain for any clue which would lead to the elucidation of the mystery.

Suddenly Cleek stopped. He pointed a little ahead of him with his walking stick.

”There you are!” said he briskly. ”The patch of charred gra.s.s.” He strode up to it, stopped and bent his eyes upon it, then suddenly exclaimed: ”Look here! Below at the roots the fresh gra.s.s is springing up in little tender green shoots. That patch'll disappear shortly. And”-he stopped and sucked in his breath, wheeling round upon Mr. Narkom-”when you come to think of it, why shouldn't it have grown up already? There's been time enough since the man Wynne's disappearance to cover up all those singed ends in a new growth. Can't be that it's done on purpose, and yet-why is it still here?”

”Perhaps some sign or something,” suggested Mr. Narkom.

”Possibly, something of the sort. And if we have signs then there must be something human behind all this talk of supernatural agents,” returned Cleek. ”Let us take it that this patch of charred gra.s.s hides something, or marks the way to something, something buried underneath it, or lying near by. Eh-what's that?”

”That” was a cat-call ringing out across the misty silences from the direction in which Dollops and Petrie had gone.

”They've found something!” cried out Mr. Narkom, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper of excitement.

”Obviously. Well, this other thing will wait. We'll go after them.”

The two of them hastened off in the direction of the repeated cat-call, and soon came upon Dollops bending over something, his eyes rather scared, just as Hammond arrived from the other direction in answer to the summons. Petrie, too, appeared rather nervous. As Cleek came up to them, his eyes fell upon the ground, and he stopped stock still.