"There's very few impossibilities in this world, Middlebrook," he answered. "I'm not saying that any of the gang were present in Raven's outhouse yonder, where they carried the poor fellow's body, but there were a dozen or more men heard what I said to the police-inspector, like the old fool I was, and saw me taking my photograph. And men talk—no matter of what degree they are."
"Mr. Cazalette," said I, "I'd just like to see your results."
He got off his bed at that, and going over to a chest of drawers, unlocked one, and took out a writing-case, from which he presently extracted a sheet of cardboard, whereon he had mounted a photograph, beneath which, on the cardboard, were some lines of explanatory writing in its fine, angular style of caligraphy. This he placed in my hand without a word, watching me silently as I looked at it.
I could make nothing of the thing. It looked to me like a series—a very small one—of meaningless scratches, evidently made with the point of a knife, or even by a strong pin on the surface of the metal. Certainly, the marks were there, and, equally certainly, they looked to have been made with some intent—but what did they mean?
"What d'ye make of it, lad?" he inquired after awhile. "Anything?"
"Nothing, Mr. Cazalette!" I replied. "Nothing whatever."
"Aye, well, and to be candid, neither do I," he confessed. "And yet, I'm certain there's something in it. Take another look—and consider it carefully."
I looked again—this is what there was to look at: mere lines, and at the foot of the photograph, Mr. Cazalette's explanatory notes and suggestions: I sat studying this for a few moments. "I make nothing of it. It seems to be a plan. But of what?"
"It is a plan, Middlebrook," he answered. "A plan of some place. But there I'm done! What place? Somebody that's in the secret, to a certain point, might know—but who else could? I've speculated a deal on the meaning and significance of those lines and marks, but without success. Yet—they're the key to something."
"Probably to some place that Salter Quick knew of," I suggested.