“Steady, please. I’ll go on here by myself with you two gents. You see as no one else follows till I give leave.”
The second constable nodded, and the bank was climbed, the rector telling Distin to hold out a hand to help him—a hand that was very wet and cold, feeling something like the tail of a codfish.
Here the constable had no difficulty in finding Vane’s track over the dead leaves and beech-mast for some distance, and then he uttered an ejaculation as he pounced upon a broken stick, one of the pieces being stained with blood.
“It’s getting warm,” he said. “Oh, yes, don’t come forward, gentlemen. Here we are: ground’s all trampled and kicked up, and what’s this here? Little trowel and a basket and—”
He turned over the contents of the basket with a puzzled expression.
“Aren’t taters,” he said, holding the basket to the rector.
“No, my man, they are truffles.”
“Oh, yes, sir, I can see they’re trifles.”
“Truffles, my man, troofles,” said the rector. “The poor fellow must have been digging them up.”
“But no one wouldn’t interfere with him for digging up that stuff, sir. I mean keepers or the like. And there’s been two of ’em here, simminly. Oh, yes, look at the footmarks, only they don’t tell no tales. I like marks in soft mud, where you can tell the size, and what nails was in the boots. Stuff like this shows nothing. Halloo, again.”