The blue scarab
to the race-course; then we rode on briskly for a mile, which brought
us to the spot where the footpath to Merbridge joined the road. Here
we dismounted and, lifting our bicycles over the stile, followed the
path towards a small wood which we could see ahead, crowning a low
hill.
“For such a good path,” Thorndyke remarked as we approached the wood,
“it is singularly unfrequented. I haven’t seen a soul since we left
the road.” He glanced at the map as the path entered the wood, and
when we had walked on a couple of hundred yards, he halted and stood
his bicycle against a tree. “The chalk-pit should be about here,” said
he, “though it is impossible to see.” He grasped a stem of one of the
small bushes that crowded on to the path and pulled it aside. Then he
uttered an exclamation.
“Just look at that, Jervis. It is a positive scandal that a public
path should be left in this condition.”
Certainly Mr. Crowhurst had not exaggerated. It was a most dangerous
place. The parted branches revealed a chasm some thirty feet deep, the
brink of which, masked by the bushes, was but a matter of inches from
the edge of the path.
“We had better go back,” said Thorndyke, “and find the entrance to the
pit, which seems to be to the right. The first thing is to ascertain
exactly where Harewood fell. Then we can come back and examine the
place from above.”
We turned back, and presently found a faint track, which we followed
until, descending steeply, it brought us out into the middle of the
pit. It was evidently an ancient pit, for the sides were blackened by
age, and the floor was occupied by a number of trees, some of
considerable size. Against one of these we leaned our bicycles and
then walked slowly round at the foot of the frowning cliff.
“This seems to be below the path,” said Thorndyke, glancing up at the
grey wall which jutted out above in stages like an inverted flight of
steps. “Somewhere hereabouts we should find some traces of the
tragedy.”
Even as he spoke my eye caught a spot of white on a block of chalk,
and on the freshly fractured surface a significant brownish-red stain.
The block lay opposite the mouth of an artificial cave--an old
wagon-shelter, but now empty--and immediately under a markedly
overhanging part of the cliff.
“This is undoubtedly the place where he fell,” said Thorndyke. “You
can see where the stretcher was placed--an old-pattern stretcher with
wheel-runners--and there is a little spot of broken soil at the top
where he came over. Well, apart from the robbery, a clear fall of over
thirty feet is enough to account for a fractured skull. Will you stay
here, Jervis, while I run up and look at the path?”
He went off towards the entrance, and presently I heard him above,
pulling aside the bushes, and after one or two trials, he appeared
directly overhead.
“There are plenty of footprints on the path,” said he, “but nothing
abnormal. No trampling or signs of a struggle. I am going on a little
farther.”
He withdrew behind the bushes, and I proceeded to inspect the interior
of the cave, noting the smoke-blackened roof and the remains of a
recent fire, which, with a number of rabbit bones and a discarded
tea-boiler of the kind used by the professional tramp, seemed not
without a possible bearing on our investigation. I was thus engaged
when I heard Thorndyke hail me from above, and coming out of the cave,
I saw his head thrust between the branches. He seemed to be lying
down, for his face was nearly on a level with the top of the cliff.
“I want to take an impression,” he called out. “Will you bring up the
paraffin and the blower? And you might bring the coil of line, too.”
I hurried away to the place where our bicycles were standing, and
opening the research case, took out the coil of line, the tin of
paraffin wax and the spirit blowpipe, and having ascertained that the
container of the latter was full, I ran up the incline and made my way
along the path. Some distance along, I found my colleague nearly
hidden in the bushes, lying prone, with his head over the edge of the
cliff.
“You see, Jervis,” he said as I crawled alongside and looked over,
“this is a possible way down, and some one has used it quite recently.
He climbed down with his face to the cliff--you can see the clear
impression of the toe of a boot in the loam on that projection, and
you can even make out the shape of an iron toe-tip. Now the problem is
how to get down to take the impression without dislodging the earth
above it. I think I will secure myself with the line.”
“It is hardly worth the risk of a broken neck,” said I. “Probably the
print is that of some schoolboy.”
“It is a man’s foot,” he replied. “Most likely it has no connection
with our case. But it may have, and as a shower of rain would
obliterate it we ought to secure it.” As he spoke, he passed the end
of the cord through the eye and slipped the loop over his shoulders,
drawing it tight under his arms. Then, having made the line fast to
the butt of a small tree, he cautiously lowered himself over the edge
and climbed down to the projection. As soon as he had a secure
footing, I passed the spare cord through the ring on the lid of the
wax tin and lowered it to him, and when he had unfastened it, I drew
up the cord and in the same way let down the blowpipe. Then I watched
his neat, methodical procedure. First he took out a spoonful of the
powdered, or grated, wax and very delicately sprinkled it on the
toe-print until the latter was evenly but very thinly covered. Next he
lit the blow-lamp, and as soon as the blue flame began to roar from
the pipe, he directed it on to the toe-print. Almost instantly the
powder melted, glazing the impression like a coat of varnish. Then the
flame was removed and the film of wax at once solidified and became
dull and opaque. A second, heavier sprinkling with the powder,
followed by another application of the flame, thickened the film of
wax, and this process, repeated four or five times, eventually
produced a solid cake. Then Thorndyke extinguished the blow-lamp, and
securing it and the tin to the cord, directed me to pull them up. “And
you might send me down the field-glasses,” he added. “There is
something farther down that I can’t quite make out.”
I slipped the glasses from my shoulder, and opening the case, tied the
cord to the leather sling and lowered it down the cliff; and then I
watched with some curiosity as Thorndyke stood on his insecure perch
steadily gazing through the glasses (they were Zeiss 8-prismatics) at
a clump of wallflowers that grew from a boss of chalk about half-way
down. Presently he lowered the glasses and, slinging them round his
neck by their lanyard, turned his attention to the cake of wax. It was
by this time quite solid, and when he had tested it, he lifted it
carefully and placed it in the empty binocular case, when I drew it
up.
“I want you, Jervis,” Thorndyke called up, “to steady the line. I am
going down to that wallflower clump.”
It looked extremely unsafe, but I knew it was useless to protest, so I
hitched the line around a massive stump and took a firm grip of the
“fall.”
“Ready,” I sang out; and forthwith Thorndyke began to creep across the
face of the cliff with feet and hands clinging to almost invisible
projections. Fortunately, there was at this part no overhang, and
though my heart was in my mouth as I watched, I saw him cross the
perilous space in safety. Arrived at the clump, he drew an envelope
from his pocket, stooped and picked up some small object, which he
placed in the envelope, returning the latter to his pocket. Then he
gave me another bad five minutes while he recrossed the nearly
vertical surface to his starting-point; but at length this, too, was
safely accomplished, and when he finally climbed up over the edge and
stood beside me on solid earth, I drew a deep breath and turned to
revile him.
“Well,” I demanded sarcastically, “what have you gathered at the risk
of your neck? Is it samphire or edelweiss?”
He drew the envelope from his pocket, and dipping into it, produced a
cigarette-holder--a cheap bone affair, black and clammy with long
service and still holding the butt of a hand-made cigarette--and
handed it to me. I turned it over, smelled it and hastily handed it
back. “For my part,” said I, “I wouldn’t have risked the cervical
vertebrae of a yellow cat for it. What do you expect to learn from
it?”
“Of course, I expect nothing. We are just collecting facts on the
chance that they may turn out to be relevant. Here, for instance, we
find that a man has descended, within a few yards of where Harewood
fell, by this very inconvenient route, instead of going round to the
entrance to the pit. He must have had some reason for adopting this
undesirable mode of descent. Possibly, he was in a hurry, and probably
he belonged to the district, since a stranger would not know of the
existence of this short cut. Then it seems likely that this was his
cigarette tube. If you look over, you will see by those vertical
scrapes on the chalk that he slipped and must have nearly fallen. At
that moment he probably dropped the tube, for you notice that the
wallflower clump is directly under the marks of his toes.”
“Why do you suppose he did not recover the tube?”
“Because the descent slopes away from the position of the clump, and
he had no trusty Jervis with a stout cord to help him to cross the
space. And if he went down this way because he was hurried, he would
not have time to search for the tube. But if the tube was not his,
still it belonged to somebody who has been here recently.”
“Is there anything that leads you to connect this man with the crime?”
“Nothing but time and place,” he replied. “The man has been down into
the pit close to where Harewood was robbed and possibly murdered, and
as the traces are quite recent, he must have been there near about the
time of the robbery. That is all. I am considering the traces of this
man in particular because there are no traces of any other. But we may
as well have a look at the path, which, as you see, yields good
impressions.”
We walked slowly along the path towards Merbridge, keeping at the
edges and scrutinizing the surface closely. In the shady hollows, the
soft loam bore prints of many feet, and among them we could
distinguish one with an iron toe-tip, but it was nearly obliterated by
another studded with hob-nails.
“We shan’t get much information here,” said Thorndyke as he turned
about. “The search party have trodden out the important prints. Let us
see if we can find out where the man with the toe-tips went to.”
We searched the path on the Welsbury side of the chalk-pit, but found
no trace of him. Then we went into the pit, and having located the
place where he descended, sought for some other exit than the track
leading to the path. Presently, half-way up the slope, we found a
second track, bearing away in the direction of Merbridge. Following
this for some distance, we came to a small hollow at the bottom of
which was a muddy space. And here we both halted abruptly, for in the
damp ground were the clear imprints of a pair of boots which we could
see had, in addition to the toe-tips, half-tips to the heels.
“We had better have wax casts of these,” said Thorndyke, “to compare
with the boots of the man Fletcher. I will do them while you go back
for the bicycles.”
By the time that I returned with the machines two of the footprints
were covered with a cake each of wax, and Thorndyke had left the track
and was peering among the bushes. I inquired what he was looking for.
“It is a forlorn hope, as Marchmont would say,” he replied, “but I am
looking to see if the will has been thrown away here. It was quite