"Whew! Is that all, then? Nothing under-ground?"
"No, sir. Not a blinkin' thing."
"Um. Pity. You must show me the hunting-boots, Dollops; they may prove a clue—though just how they would be connected with this particular case remains to be seen. Very muddy, eh? Any name inside?"
Dollops nodded.
He looked hastily from side to side to see that no one was listening. Then he bent toward Cleek with a mysterious manner and spoke in a bated voice.
"Yessir. Belongs to a gen'leman as is sweet on the young leddy we come along wiv yesterday from Lunnon," he replied weightily. "Or so they tell me up at the Three Fishers. Name of Macdonald—Captain Angus Macdonald. Writ inside 'em as large as life and twice as nat'ril. Eh?—wot's the matter, sir?"
For Cleek had whirled about suddenly and struck his hands together, and was laughing, laughing like a man gone suddenly daft. He stopped abruptly and put one hand upon Dollops's shoulder.
"Matter?" he said rapidly. "Why, simply this: Get a line on this young Captain's handwriting, Dollops, and report to me this afternoon. And if it tallies with this note, as I somehow fancy it does—well, we'll see the fur fly so quickly that you won't be able to say Jack Robinson. Happen to notice the size of the boots, by any chance?"
"Yessir. Tens."
"Good lad. And the footprints outside of the window in that little courtyard are tens, too! The net's closing in upon you, my gallant friend, and you won't get a chance to do much more spluttering and exclaiming before I've found out what your little move in this Inheritance Game is, and—nipped it in the bud!... Gad!—Captain Angus Macdonald! And—tens!... Now, who the dickens would have thought it?"