“You know him?”
“Well.”
“Then you can borrow them?”
“Surely,” returned the clerk.
“Get them,” ordered Kennedy, waving away a group who had come up on the ground just below us. “And hurry, before the scent gets cold.”
The clerk nodded and disappeared on the run.
Down below the crowd kept collecting.
“Keep them back,” ordered Kennedy, “until the bloodhounds get here. See—there are marks in the grass that show that some one has been here—and—look—on this bush a torn corner of the portière.”
A moment later two men from the hotel stables appeared, with the dogs tugging on leash.
Quickly Kennedy gave them the scent before the trail of the footprints and the dragging portière had been destroyed by the curious.