Inspector Armadale listened to the verdict with a rather gloomy face.
“It’s a pity,” he commented regretfully. “Dragging with the grapnel is a kind of hit-or-miss job, Sir Clinton; and it’ll take far longer than working with the net.”
Sir Clinton acquiesced with a gesture.
“We’d better start close in under the cliff-face,” he said. “If anything came down from the top, it can’t have gone far before it sank. One of the people last night was watching the pool and he saw nothing on the surface after the splash, so it ought to be somewhere near the cave-mouth. You can pole over to the shore now, Constable; we’ve done with this part of the business.”
The constable obeyed the order and soon Sir Clinton rejoined the Inspector on the bank.
“It’s likely to be a troublesome business,” the Chief Constable admitted as his subordinate came up. “The bottom’s very irregular and the chances are that the grapnel will stick, two times out of three. However, the sooner we get to work, the better.”
He considered for a moment or two.
“Tack a light line to the grapnel as well as the rope. Get the raft out past the cave and let a constable pitch the grapnel in there. Then when you’ve dragged, or if the grapnel sticks, he can pull the hook back again with the light line and start afresh alongside the place where he made the last cast. But it’s likely to be a slow business, as you say.”
The Inspector agreed and set his constables to work at once. Sir Clinton withdrew to a little distance, sat down on a small hillock from which he could oversee the dragging operations, and patiently awaited the start of the search. His eyes, wandering with apparent incuriosity over the group at the water’s edge, noted with approval that Armadale was wasting no time.
Having made his instructions clear, the Inspector came over to where the Chief Constable was posted.