“It’s a bit of black thread you’ve got tangled up in. Wait a jiffy.”
He freed Ernest from the fibre and began to trace along the thread with his light. It seemed to be merely the end of a long tentacle extending out from the entrance to the Maze.
“Ariadne’s clue!” exclaimed Wendover, when he saw the direction in which the filament lay.
Sir Clinton nodded briefly.
“You people had better get back to the car,” he said. “I don’t want the ground trampled here. We can look at it in the morning. I’m just going to follow up this thread. I’ll be back in a minute or two.”
Holding his light low, he disappeared into the intricacies of the Maze, while Wendover shepherded the others back to the car. Once round a corner or two and well out of sight of the rest, Sir Clinton ceased to trouble about the thread and made his way direct to one centre of the Maze. He sought about for a time, evidently fruitlessly; and then made his way to the other centre. Here his search was more successful. Among some bushes in the enclosure, he unearthed a suit-case.
“Well, that was a long shot,” he admitted to himself, though with evident satisfaction. “He’s evidently not too sure that he’s taken me in with his soft sawder, and he’s provided for contingencies. Let’s see.”
He opened the suit-case and scrutinised one or two of the garments in it.
“Complete change of clothes and no marking on so much as a handkerchief. Quite right!”
He re-closed the suit-case and put it back into the hiding-place in which he had found it. Then he retraced his steps in the Maze until he came to the black thread which he proceeded to follow to the end.