As the car had not been heard by either Coombe or Mee on the night of the tragedy, it followed that it had almost certainly entered by the back drive. French now walked up this lane to the yard, looking for hiding-places. But there were none.
He did not see any of the servants about and he stood in the yard, pondering over his problem. Then his glance fell on the old well, and it instantly occurred to him that here was the very kind of place he was seeking. There was an old wheel pump beside it, rusty and dilapidated, working a rod to the plunger below. He imagined the well was not used, for on his last visit he had noticed a well-oiled force pump a hundred yards away at the kitchen door.
The well was surrounded by a masonry wall about three feet high, coped with roughly dressed stones. On the coping was a flat wooden grating, old and decaying. Ivy covered about half of the wall and grating.
French crossed the yard and, leaning over the wall, glanced down. The sides were black with age and he could distinguish no details of the walls, but there was a tiny reflection from the water far below. Then suddenly he noticed a thing which once again set him off into a ferment of delight.
The cross-bars of the grating were secured by mortar into niches cut in the stone. All of these bore signs of recent movement.
Satisfied that he had at last solved his problem, French quietly left the yard and, recovering his bicycle, rode back to the police station at Ashburton.
“I want your help, Sergeant,” he said as Daw came forward. “Can you get some things together and come out with me to Colonel Domlio’s to-night?”
“Of course, Mr. French.”
“Good. Then I want a strong fishing-line and some hooks and some twenty-five or thirty yards of strong cord. I should like also a candle-burning lantern and, of course, your electric torch. I want to try an experiment.”
“I’ll have all those ready.”