"Because," I said distinctly, "because he wasn't there."
"Jim, whatever do you mean?" she cried.
"I can't say any more than I've just said," I told her. "When I went to look I found he wasn't where I'd left him last night, and, though I searched the valley from end to end, I couldn't find sign or sight of him."
"It's impossible," she asserted. "You can't make a dead man fade into thin air like that. If he's not in the valley, he's been taken out of it."
"And who's taken him out?" I countered. "There's only two ways out. Nobody's passed us during the night, and anyone that went out through the wattles would leave a trail like an elephant."
"That's true enough," she admitted crestfallenly. And then she turned on me swiftly. "Jim," she cried, "it's possible.... He might...."
The idea jumped into my mind at almost the same moment, but it seemed too preposterous for belief.
"No," I interrupted. "It isn't. He couldn't. Moira, I tell you he was as dead as a door-nail when I reached him."
She made a little gesture of despair as she realised to the full the bitter futility of attempting to solve the puzzle, yet I had a feeling that she had not quite given up hope. She did not make any further remark on the way back to the cave, and she certainly wasn't as much thrilled by my discovery of the ruins of the hut as I had expected her to be. I let her be; it's never safe to divert the current of a woman's thoughts.
I stepped into the cave ahead of her, and no sooner had I passed from the light outside into the interior darkness than a crisp voice snapped at me.