I was curious to see what sort of tomb this was which had been apparently so desecrated, and followed the inspector towards it at his invitation.
"This is the grave I told you about, gentlemen," he said, indicating it with his finger; "you will see they have lifted the top stone off."
It was a very large tomb of the description called "altar tombs," but the flat stone which covered it lay by its side, and the rotten state of the low brickwork which had supported it accounted for its giving way, even with the boy's weight.
The inspector took a lantern and held it inside the broken brickwork; yes, there could be no doubt the grave had been disturbed, and that recently.
Freshly turned earth lay between the walls of brickwork, which were spacious enough to allow of an ordinary-sized grave being dug within them.
"Is the grave just as it was found?" I asked.
"Exactly, Mr. Anstruther," he answered. "The earth has not been disturbed at all. But I think we'll make a start now. Here comes Dr. Burbridge, the officer of health. We thought it better to have him present."
The figure of a man wearing a tall hat now appeared crossing the graveyard, preceded by a constable bearing a lantern.
After briefly introducing the newcomer, the inspector gave the word to the two labourers, and they scrambled inside the broken brickwork and commenced digging.
I looked round the weird spot as the noise of their spades became monotonous, relieved only by the throwing aside of the great lumps of moist earth; a mist was rising from the river flowing near, of which in the first stillness of our coming I could just catch the ripple of the water. It seemed to me that those who were long buried there had in life perhaps had some association with the river—even an affection for it—and had wished to be laid there near its soft murmur while they slept.