ikewise. They rarely spoke, simply pushed and
poked and trod the grass down; searching, searching, searching, as had
those other men upon the night of Dacre Wynne's disappearance. But they
had searched in vain for any clue which would lead to the elucidation of
the mystery.

Suddenly Cleek stopped. He pointed a little ahead of him with his walking
stick.

"There you are!" said he briskly. "The patch of charred grass." He strode
up to it, stopped and bent his eyes upon it, then suddenly exclaimed:
"Look here! Below at the roots the fresh grass is springing up in little
tender green shoots. That patch'll disappear shortly. And"--he stopped
and sucked in his breath, wheeling round upon Mr. Narkom--"when you come
to think of it, why shouldn't it have grown up already? There's been time
enough since the man Wynne's disappearance to cover up all those singed
ends in a new growth. Can't be that it's done on _purpose_, and yet--why
is it still here?"

"Perhaps some sign or something," suggested Mr. Narkom.

"Possibly, something of the sort. And if we have signs then there must
be something human behind all this talk of supernatural agents,"
returned Cleek. "Let us take it that this patch of charred grass _hides_
something, or marks the way to something, something buried underneath it,
or lying near by. Eh--what's that?"

"That" was a cat-call ringing out across the misty silences from the
direction in which Dollops and Petrie had gone.

"They've found something!" cried out Mr. Narkom, in a hoarse whisper of
excitement.

"Obviously. Well, this other thing will wait. We'll go after them."

The two of them hastened off in the direction of the repeated cat-call,
and soon came upon Dollops bending over something, his eyes rather
scared, just as Hammond arrived from the other direction in answer to the
summons. Petrie, too, appeared rather nervous. As Cleek came up to them,
his eyes fell upon the ground, and he stopped stock still.

"_Gad!..._ Where did you find it?"

"Here, sir; half buried, but with the 'ead a-stickin' out!" returned
Petrie. "Dollops and I pulled it out and--and 'ere it is."

Cleek glanced down at the body of a heavily built man, clad in evening
clothes, and already in an advanced state of decomposition. "Looks like
it was that chap Wynne," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "Answers the
description all right. The other man was short and red-headed. And the
evening clothes are well cut from what I can