"A poor one, sir. I was just quietly passing one of those storage buildings when I saw a flicker of light beneath the doorsill. It was too soon to hear the crackle of burning wood or smell any smoke, but I knew what was up. I pushed open the door. That was when I saw the two oil-tins lying on their sides and the whole floor flooded with the stuff. There was smoke enough, then, sir! That's why I could only get a poor look through it at the feller."
"He was in the building when you saw him?"
"Yes, sir—and out of it again like a deer, by the door at the other end, as soon as he saw me. I couldn't run through the flames, and by the time I'd jumped back and cut around the building, he was lost in the darkness. I swept my torch this way and that, but never a sign of him. I heard him, though," he added significantly.
"Yes? Where?"
"He stumbled over something near the left-hand corner of the yard where the fence runs down to the brook. That tells us what we didn't know before, sir. He doesn't come over the fence, nor under it; he either wades the brook around the end of it, or else scrambles around by way of the bank. Unless I'm all wrong, sir, we'll find his footprints there in the morning."
"We'll find them there now," Varr corrected him curtly. "You have your torch? Come along, then."
He extinguished the light in the office and led the way downstairs and out into the yard. They passed the smoking ruins of the two destroyed buildings and came in a few seconds to the spot described by Fay. Varr took the torch from him and played its beam on the ground near the juncture of fence and brook.
"You're right!" he exclaimed. "Here are footprints—and that piece of wire is what you heard him trip over. Take a close look at those prints, Fay, while I hold the light. Don't muck 'em up with your own dainty feet! Anything noticeable about them?"
The conscientious watchman dropped on his hands and knees and seemed to fairly sniff at the marks like a bloodhound.
"No, sir," he reported regretfully. "They're just footprints."