aid the constable quickly. "I see, sir, you're
quite right. Some one went down here and--Phee-ew!" he whistled as he
picked up a leaf. "See that, sir?"

The rector looked, shuddered and turned away, but Distin pressed forward
with a curious, half-fascinated aspect, and stared down at the leaf the
constable held out, pointing the while to several more like it which lay
upon the ground.

"Blood?" said Distin in a hoarse voice.

"Yes, sir, that's it. Either the young gent or some one else had what
made that. Don't look nice, do it?"

Distin shuddered, and the constable made another note in his book,
moistening his pencil over and over again and glancing thoughtfully at
Distin as he wrote in a character that might have been called
cryptographic, for it would have defied any one but the writer to have
made it out.

"Well, constable," said the rector at last, "what have you discovered?"

"That the young gent was out here, sir, digging up them tater things as
he was in the habit of grubbing up--weeds and things. I've seen him
before."

"Yes, yes," said the rector. "Well?"

"And then some one come and went at him."

"Some one," said the rector, "I thought you said two."

"So I did, sir, and I thought so at first, but I don't kind o' find
marks of more than one, and he broke this stick about Mr Vane, and the
wonder to me is as he hasn't killed him. Perhaps he has."

"But what motive? It could not have been the keepers."

"Not they, sir. They liked him."

"Could it be poachers?"

"Can't say, sir. Hardly. What would they want to 'tack a young gent
like that for?"

"Have there been any tramps about who might do it for the sake of
robbery?"

"Ha'n't been a tramp about here for I don't know how long, sir. We're
quite out of them trash. Looks to me more like a bit o' spite."

"Spite?"

"Yes, sir. Young gent got any enemies as you know on?"

The rector laughed and Distin joined in, making the constable scratch
his head.

"Oh, no, my man, we have no enemies in my parish. You have not got the
right clue this time. Try again."

"I'm going to, sir, but that's all for to-day," said the man, buttoning
up his book in his pocket. "I think we'll go back to the town now."

"By all means," said the rector. "Very painful and very strange. Come,
Distin."

As he spoke he walked from under the twilight of the great beech-wood
out into the sunshine, where about a dozen of the searchers were waiting
i