d, there was a stout door. This Hewitt tried, and found ajar.

"That's always kept bolted," Kentish said. "He's gone out that way--he
couldn't have gone any other without comin' through the house."

"But he isn't in the habit of making a step three yards long, is he?"
Hewitt asked, pointing at the last footmark and then at the door, which
was quite that distance away from it. "Besides," he added, opening the
door, "there's no footprint here nor outside."

The door opened on a lane, with another fence and a thick plantation of
trees at the other side. Kentish looked at the footmarks, then at the
door, then down the lane, and finally back toward the house. "That's a
licker!" he said.

"This is a quiet sort of lane," was Hewitt's next remark. "No houses in
sight. Where does it lead?"

"That way it goes to the Old Kilns--disused. This way down to a turning
off the Padfield and Catton road."

Hewitt returned to the cinder-path again, and once more examined the
footmarks. He traced them back over the grass toward the house.
"Certainly," he said, "he hasn't gone back to the house. Here is the
double line of tracks, side by side, from the house--Steggles' ordinary
boots with iron tips, and Crockett's running pumps; thus they came out.
Here is Steggles' track in the opposite direction alone, made when he went
back for the sweater. Crockett remained; you see various prints in those
loose cinders at the end of the path where he moved this way and that, and
then two or three paces toward the fence--not directly toward the door,
you notice--and there they stop dead, and there are no more, either back
or forward. Now, if he had wings, I should be tempted to the opinion that
he flew straight away in the air from that spot--unless the earth
swallowed him and closed again without leaving a wrinkle on its face."

Kentish stared gloomily at the tracks and said nothing.

"However," Hewitt resumed, "I think I'll take a little walk now and think
over it. You go into the house and show yourself at the bar. If anybody
wants to know how Crockett is, he's pretty well, thank you. By the by, can
I get to the Cop--this place of Taylor's--by this back lane?"

"Yes, down to the end leading to the Catton road, turn to the left and
then first on the right. Any one'll show you the Cop," and Kentish shut
the door behind the detective, who straightway walked--toward the Old
Kilns.

In little more than an hour he was back. It was now becoming dus