"H'm! Sure it was a man?" asked Cleek, as the three men came out once more into the lane.
"Well!" said the police-constable, startled by this new hypothesis. "Now you speak, sir—the footsteps was light enough and there was a precious fine scent."
Before he could volunteer any further ideas, he caught sight of something which apparently drove them all from his head.
In his excitement he gripped the arm of Mr. Narkom, oblivious for the time being of their relative positions. "Look, sir," he said, "blest if there ain't somebody got into the 'ouse now, though 'ow they've bin and done it, beats me!"
Only a minute before the house had loomed up dark and cheerless, without a single sign of habitation. Now in the lower room known both by Cleek and the superintendent to be the dining room, someone was obviously walking about with a light held in one hand. For a moment all three stood stock-still gaping at one another in blank amazement, then Cleek spoke.
"Come on," said he, through clenched teeth, "not a sound if you can help it, and look if there are any strange footprints."
"The place is alive with footprints!" ejaculated Constable Roberts, as he turned the light of his bull's-eye downward and it revealed unmistakable traces on the soft, yielding earth. They led right up to the edge of the marble terrace. "Look, sir, this is the way he come down the lane, up this path and straight ahead. Come on!"
Straight down the narrow path they went without break or interruption, shielded by the overshadowing trees, their eyes bent on the countless footprints which followed each other down the centre in one long unbroken line leading right to the house.
Suddenly at the front steps they stopped short, and Cleek and Narkom stopped also, for from the steps they took another direction altogether, wheeling about sharply and leading toward the terrace where they seemed to terminate.