“By all means,” Lord Ashleigh agreed, touching a bell. “We have several hours before we change for dinner. I will have a car round and take you to the spot.”
The Professor acquiesced readily, and very soon they stepped out of the automobile on to the side of a narrow road, looking very much as it had been described. Further on, beyond a stretch of open common, they could see the smoke from the gipsy encampment. On their left-hand side was a stretch of absolutely wild country, bounded in the far distance by the grey stone wall of the park. Lord Ashleigh led the way through the thicket, talking as he went.
“Craig came along through here,” he explained. “The groom and the Scotland Yard man who had been sitting by his side followed him. They searched for an hour but found no trace of him at all. Then they returned to the house to make a report and get help. I will now show you how Craig first eluded them.”
He led the way along a tangled path, doubled back, plunged into a little spinney and came suddenly to a small shed.
“This is an ancient gamekeeper’s shelter,” he explained, “built a long time ago and almost forgotten now. What Craig did, without a doubt, was to hide in this. The Scotland Yard man who took the affair in hand found distinct traces here of recent occupation. That is how he made his first escape.”
Quest nodded.
“Sure!” he murmured. “Well now, what about your more extended search?”
“I was coming to that,” Lord Ashleigh replied. “As Edgar will remember, no doubt, I have always kept a few bloodhounds in my kennels, and as soon as we could get together one or two of the keepers and a few of the local constabulary, we started off again from here. The dogs brought us without a check to this shed, and started off again in this way.”
They walked another half a mile, across a reedy swamp. Every now and then they had to jump across a small dyke, and once they had to make a detour to avoid an osier bed. They came at last to the river.
“Now I can show you exactly how that fellow put us off the scent here,” their guide proceeded. “He seems to have picked up something, Edgar, in those South American trips of yours, for a cleverer thing I never saw. You see all these bullrushes everywhere—clouds of them, all along the river?”