"Of course, of course. But what does he mean by signet?"
"It could be nothing but that motto of his, `All that I have I carry with me.' It's been helpful so far. And it'll help us again. Somewhere down in that well it's carved on the wall…."
Again the chief constable was rubbing his cheek and scowling.
"Yes. But we don't know where. And it's an unhealthy place to go foraging, you know."
"Nonsense!" the doctor said, sharply. "Of course we know where it is."
As the chief constable only looked sour, Dr. Fell settled back again to a comfortable lighting of his pipe. He went on in a thoughtful voice:
"If, for example, a heavy rope were to be run round the balcony railing in the groove of old Anthony's rope, and its end dropped into the well as Anthony's rope was… well, we shouldn't be very far from the place, should we? The well may be large, but a line dropped from that groove would narrow our search down to a matter of feet. And if a stout young fellow-such as our young friend here — were to take hold of it at the mouth of the well and swarm down…"
"That's sound enough," the chief constable acknowledged. "But what good would it do? According to you, the murderer has long ago cleaned out whatever might have been in there. He killed old Timothy because Timothy surprised him, and he killed Martin because Martin would have learned his secret if he'd read the paper in the vault… What do you expect to find down there now?"
Dr. Fell hesitated. "I'm not sure. But we should have to do it, anyhow."
"I dare say." Sir Benjamin drew a long breath. "Well. Tomorrow morning I'll get a, couple of constables-'