"You've been down to the beach and back, sir?" the inspector asked, looking over a little wonderingly.
"Every inch of the way. The last eighty feet or so I had to scramble."
"Did you discover anything, sir?"
"Not a thing. I couldn't even find a broken twig in any of the little clumps of outgrowing trees. There wasn't a sign of the sand having been disturbed anywhere down the face of the cliff, and I shouldn't think a human being had been on that beach during our lifetimes. I have had my night's work for nothing."
"It was just the cry you fancied you heard which made you undertake this expedition?"
"Precisely!"
The inspector held up the broken rail.
"When was this smashed?" he enquired.
"I have no idea," Tallente answered. "All the woodwork about the place is rotten."
"Doesn't it occur to you, sir, as being an extraordinarily dangerous thing to put it back in exactly the same position as though it were sound?"