They were up to the other two by that time, and Blick, without further question or any ceremony, plunged in amongst the trees, followed by the three men.
“Where is he? Who is he?” he asked. “Anybody you know?”
“A stranger—looks like a tourist,” said Harborough. “Here, at the foot of the rocks!”
He thrust and held aside the clinging branches of the pines, and suddenly revealed the body of a man, lying in a curiously twisted attitude across a mass of sharp-edged stone. One glance upward was sufficient to show what had befallen him; he had slipped from the edge of the precipice far above, and crashed without a break, on the place where he lay: a little distance from him lay the walking-stick which he had dropped from his hand as he fell.
With a sharp exclamation Blick sprang forward and turned the face, hitherto crushed in amongst a cushion of moss and heather, to the light. He rose, staring at it.
“Good God!” he said. “It’s Crawley—the man I met——”
But a stronger, far more astonished exclamation came from the Professor, as he in his turn saw the dead man’s face.
“Crawley?” he said. “Crawley? Man alive!—That’s Carter! Carter! Carter, I tell you!”
Blick felt as if an ice-cold wave of illumination had washed across his brain. He turned on the Professor with searching eyes.
“Carter!” he exclaimed. “Your assistant?”