“I have,” I answered with feeling, “and I quite agree with you. If the thief wanted to do away with the dog the beast’s body is probably somewhere near.”
“What about the river?” my companion suggested.
“More likely the loch,” I decided, “or the sea. But that would mean a boat, because it would have to be buried in deep water, or the body would be washed up again on the rocks, even with a heavy weight attached. There are many deep pools in the river, but they are constantly fished, and that would lead to eventual detection. We are dealing with a man who knows his way about. It might be the loch or one of the burns, easily.”
Accordingly we decided to try the loch first; but though we followed the path from the house, carefully studying the ground every foot of the way, and examined the banks equally carefully, we were forced to the conclusion that we were on the wrong scent. Then we came down one of the burns that runs from the loch to the sea, and met with the same result.
“We’ll walk along the beach and go up the next stream,” Garnesk suggested. “Hullo,” he exclaimed suddenly, as we clambered over the huge rocks into a tiny cove, “there’s been a boat in here!”
I looked at the shingly beach, and saw the keel-marks of a boat and the footprints of its occupants in the middle of the cove. We went up gingerly, for fear of disturbing the ground of our investigations. I looked at the marks, and pondered them for a moment. By this time my senses were wide awake.
“What do you make of it?” the oculist asked.
“Well,” I replied, with an apologetic laugh, “I’m afraid you’ll think me more picturesque than businesslike if I tell you all the conclusions I’ve already come to; but the man who came ashore in this boat didn’t steal Sholto.”
“Go on,” he said. “Why, I told you I knew you weren’t a fool.”
“Thank you!” I laughed. “It seems to me that if a man arrived in a boat and went ashore to steal a dog, he would go away again in the same boat.”