“Very well, then, be as quick as you can.”
The three police officers remained beside the well, watching the pumping. In a little more than half an hour the flow of water from the mouth of the pump began to decrease. Then the pump began to gurgle and the water stopped. Suction had ceased and the well was practically empty.
Under Detective Gillett’s instructions the men who had emptied the well removed the boards which covered the top, and one of them went to the barn and returned with a long ladder. Between them they lowered the ladder into the empty well. The ladder was more than long enough to reach the bottom, for the top was several feet above the mouth of the well.
“That will do, men,” ordered the Scotland Yard detective. He climbed to the edge of the well as he spoke.
“Have you a light?” asked Sergeant Westaway in a moment of inspiration.
For reply Detective Gillett displayed a powerful electric torch, and placed one foot on the ladder.
“Better take the stable lantern, sir,” urged the inventor of the well-emptying plan. “You’ll find it better down there than them new-fangled lights. You’ll be able to see further with a sensible lantern.”
“And you’d better put on my boots,” said the other fisherman. “The well’s a bricked ’un, but it’ll be main wet and muddy down there.”
Detective Gillett pronounced both ideas excellent and acted on them. Sergeant Westaway procured the stable lantern, and lighted it while the detective drew on the fisherman’s long sea boots. Thus equipped, and holding the lantern in his right hand, with an empty bag over his shoulder, the Scotland Yard man stepped on to the ladder, and disappeared from view.
Sergeant Westaway intimated to the fishermen who had emptied the tank that the work for which they had been engaged was finished; but it was some minutes before he could make it clear to their slow intellects that their presence was no longer required. When they did understand, they were very loath to withdraw, for they had looked forward with delight to seeing the emptied well yield up some ghastly secret—perhaps another murdered body—and it was only by the exercise of much sternness that Sergeant Westaway was able to get them away from the scene by personally escorting them off the farm and locking the gate after them.