Here was something I had not foreseen.
The turf of the lawn came right up to the house on this side, but to the trained eyes of these men the total absence of any vestige of a man’s jumping out would be intensely suspicious. They would be bound to search the house. They would find the entrance to the passage, and traces there. How then could they avoid the conclusion that I had connived at the man’s escape?
While these thoughts passed through my mind the constable had lighted his lamp and reconnoitred the ground.
“There’s two heel-marks here,” he now reported, still stooping with his lantern, “somebody has jumped down within the last few minutes. I can see a track across the lawn where the dew has been brushed off the grass.”
“Follow it carefully,” said the sergeant, “but keep off it. Don’t foul it.”
For a moment I was bewildered at this information. Who, I wondered, had made these tracks, since Jakoub had not? Then I caught a faint smile of understanding on Edmund’s face, and I realised that Bates was a much cleverer man than myself, that he possessed what Ruskin calls “imagination penetrative.”
“Somebody has been through the fence here,” said the constable from the far side of the lawn.
“Wait for me, then,” the sergeant replied, lowering himself out of the window. Beyond the fence was a private footpath, hard as iron in this weather, where Bates’s footprints leading back to the kitchen entrance would be quite invisible. In the other direction the path led on to the high-road.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” said the sergeant as he reached the ground, “but I’d be obliged if you would be careful not to disturb anything in that room until I have a chance to examine it.”
“Certainly,” I said, “we are going to my study where you will find us if you have time to return, or if we can help you in any way.”