"It was this way," he went on, eagerly. "I didn't have to use the rope very far. About five or six feet down there are stone niches hacked into the side, almost like steps. I'd figured it wouldn't be very far down, because heavy rains might flood out any hiding place Anthony had made. You had to watch yourself, because the niches were slimy; but there was one big stone scraped almost clean. I could see an 'om' and a 'me' cut into a round inscription. The rest was almost obliterated. At first I thought I couldn't move the stone block, but when I braced myself, and tied the rope round my waist, and put the edge of the trench-mattock into the side, I found it was only a thin slab. You could push it in fairly easily, and if you kept it upright there was a hole at one side where you could get in several fingers to pull it back again…. The place was full of water-spiders and rats…."
He shuddered.
"I didn't find a room, or anything elaborate. It was just an opening hollowed out of the flat stones they'd used for the well, and a part of the earth around; and it was half full of water, anyway. Herbert's body had been squeezed into it along the back. The first thing I touched was his hand, and I saw the hole in his head. By the time I had hauled him out I was as wet as he was. He's pretty small, you know, and by keeping the rope tied round my waist to brace me I could hoist him on my shoulder. His clothes were full of some kind of overblown flies, and they crawled on me. As for the rest of it…"
He slapped at himself, and the doctor gripped his arm.
"There wasn't anything else, except — oh yes, I found the handkerchief. It's pretty well rotted, but it belonged to old Timothy; T. S. on the edge, bloody and rolled in one corner. At least, I think it's blood. There were some candle-ends, too, and what looked like burnt matches. But no treasure; not a box, not a scrap. And that's all. It's cold; let me go back and get my coat. There's something inside my collar… "
The doctor gave him another drink of brandy, and they moved on heavy legs towards the Hag's Nook. Herbert Starberth's body lay where Rampole had deposited it beside the well. As they looked down at it under the doctor's light, Rampole kept wiping his hands fiercely up and down the sides of his trousers. Small and doubled, the body had its head twisted on one side, and seemed to be gaping at something it saw along the grass. The cold and damp of the underground niche had acted like an ice-house; though it must have been a week since the bullet had entered his brain, there was no sign of decomposition.
Rampole, feeling as though his brain were full of dull bells, pointed.
"Murder?" he asked.
"Undoubtedly. No weapon, and — you know."
The American spoke words which sounded idiotic even to him in the way he felt. "This has got to stop!" he said, desperately, and clenched his hands. But there was nothing else to say. It expressed everything. He repeated: "This has got to stop, I tell you! Yes, that poor devil of a butler.. or do you suppose he was in on it? I never thought of that."