Nevertheless, he heaved the woodwork up on edge and held it so, while eager eyes scanned the under part. Murmurs of disappointment followed. In these Kent did not join. He had inserted a finger in a crevice of the splintered wood and had extracted some small object which he held in the palm of his hand, examining it thoughtfully.
“Wot ye got there?” demanded the sheriff.
Professor Kent stretched out his hand, disclosing a small grayish object.
“I should take it to be the cocoon of Ephestia kuchniella,” he announced.
“An’ wot does he do for a livin’?” inquired the official, waxing humorous.
“Destroys crops. It’s a species of grain-moth.”
“Oh!” grunted Schlager. “You’re a bug collector, eh?”
“Exactly,” answered the other, transferring his trove to his pocket.
Thereafter he seemed to lose interest in the center of mystery. Withdrawing to some distance, he paced up and down the shore, whistling lively tunes, not always in perfect accord, from which a deductive mind might have inferred that his soul was not in the music.
