"Not very far. You see, what with getting Robert home and setting his knee and so on, we couldn't do much yesterday."
"Damn Robert! Great-Uncle may be away out to sea by this time. Let's get down to it."
He took up a gaff from the umbrella-stand ("Robert's," interjected Macpherson), and led the way out. The little river was foaming down in a brown spate, rattling stones and small boulders along in its passage. Every hole, every eddy might be a lurking-place for Great-Uncle Joseph. Wimsey peered irresolutely here and there—then turned suddenly to Jock.
"Where's the nearest spit of land where things usually get washed up?" he demanded.
"Eh, well! there's the Battery Pool, about a mile doon the river. Ye'll whiles find things washed up there. Aye. Imph'm. There's a pool and a bit sand, where the river mak's a bend. Ye'll mebbe find it there, I'm thinkin'. Mebbe no. I couldna say."
"Let's have a look, anyway."
Macpherson, to whom the prospect of searching the stream in detail appeared rather a dreary one, brightened a little at this.
"That's a good idea. If we take the car down to just above Gatehouse, we've only got two fields to cross."
The car was still at the door; the hired driver was enjoying the hospitality of the cottage. They pried him loose from Maggie's scones and slipped down the road to Gatehouse.
"Those gulls seem rather active about something," said Wimsey, as they crossed the second field. The white wings swooped backwards and forwards in narrowing circles over the yellow shoal. Raucous cries rose on the wind. Wimsey pointed silently with his hand. A long, unseemly object, like a drab purse, lay on the shore. The gulls, indignant, rose higher, squawking at the intruders. Wimsey ran forward, stooped, rose again with the long bag dangling from his fingers.