“We will direct our operations from here,” said Carrados, when they were half-way along the walk. “You told me of a thin iron pipe that you had traced to somewhere in the middle of the garden. We must locate the end of it exactly.”
“My rosary!” sighed Elsie, with premonition of disaster, when she had determined the spot as exactly as she could. “Oh, Mr Carrados!”
“I am sorry, but it might be worse,” said Carrados inflexibly. “We only require to find the elbow-joint. Mr Bellmark will investigate with as little disturbance as possible.”
For five minutes Bellmark made trials with a pointed iron. Then he cleared away the soil of a small circle and at about a foot deep exposed a broken inch pipe.
“The fountain,” announced Carrados, when he had examined it. “You have the compass, Mr Bellmark?”
“Rather a small one,” admitted Bellmark.
“Never mind, you are a mathematician. I want you to strike a line due east.”
The reel and cord came into play and an adjustment was finally made from the broken pipe to a position across the vegetable garden.
“Now a point nine yards, nine feet and nine inches along it.”
“My onion bed!” cried Elsie tragically.