Nobody replied to him. All were busily engaged in following the lead of Scotland Yard, as represented by Cleek and Superintendent Narkom, and bearing down on that huge stone tube within whose circular walls a dead man sat alone.
“Dreary post this, Constable,” said Cleek, coming abreast of the silent guard.
“Yes, sir, very. But dooty’s dooty—and there you be!” replied Gorham, touching his helmet with his finger; then, as the light from the lamps fell full upon Cleek’s face and let him see that it was no face he had ever seen in this district before, his eyes widened with a puzzled stare which never quite left them even when the entire group had passed on and turned the curve of the Round House wall.
And beyond that curve Cleek came to a sudden halt. Here, a curtainless window cut a square of light in the wall’s dark face and struck a glare on the trunk and the boughs of a lime tree directly opposite, and under that window a trampled flower bed lay, with curious marks deep sunk in the soft, moist surface of it.
Cleek took the lamp from Mrs. Armroyd’s hand, and, bending, looked at them closely. Mr. Nippers had not exaggerated when he said that they were all of twelve inches in length. Nor was he far out when he declared that they looked like the footprints of some creature that was part animal and part bird; for there they were, with three huge clawlike projections in front and a solitary one behind, and so like to the mark which a gigantic bird could have made that one might have said such a creature had made them, only that it was impossible for anything to fly that was possessed of weight sufficient to drive those huge footprints so deeply into the earth as they had been driven, by the mere walking of the Thing. Claws and the marks of scales, Mr. Nippers had asserted; and claws and the marks of scales the prints in the soft earth showed.
“La! la! the horror of them,” exclaimed Mrs. Armroyd, putting up her little hands and averting her face. “It could kill and kill and kill—horses, oxen, anything—an abominable creature like that! What do you figure it to have been, monsieur?—souls of the saints, what?”
“Blest if I know,” said Cleek. “Only, of course, it couldn’t possibly be anything human; so we may put the idea of the old chap having been killed by anything of his kind out of our minds altogether. It is perfectly clear that the creature, whatever it might be, got in through the window there (you see it is open) and killed him before he could call out for help or strike a blow in his own defence.”
“Eh, but window’s six foot up, Mr. Headland, sir,” put in Nippers excitedly; “and howm a thing the weight o’ that goin’ to fly in?”
“Didn’t fly in, my friend,” replied Cleek with an air of lofty superiority. “Use your wits, man. It jumped in—from the tree there. Look here—see!” going to it and tapping certain abrasions upon the trunk. “Here’s where it peeled off the bark in climbing up. Lord, man! why, it’s plain as the nose on your face. Ten to one we shall find the same sort of footprints when we go into the laboratory—damp ones, you know, from the moisture of the earth; and to make sure, in case we do find ’em let’s take the length of the things and see. Got a tape measure with you? No? Oh, well, lend me your handcuffs, if you’ve got a pair with you, and we can manage a measurement with those. Thanks very much. Now, then, let’s see. One, two, three, by Jupiter—three fingers longer than these things, chain and all. That’ll do. Now, then, let’s go in and see about the others. Lead the way, Miss Renfrew, if you will.”
She would, and did. Leading the way back to the covered passage, she opened a door in the side of it—a door designed to let the inventor out into the grounds without going through the house, if he so desired—and conducted them to the laboratory, leaving Constable Gorham to continue his dreary sentry duty outside.