human being--and of the man the Common keeper had been chasing, not a
sign nor a trace anywhere!

"Whatever the fellow did or wherever he went, he can't have gone far, so
look sharp, my lads!" commanded Narkom. "If we're quick we're sure to
nab him. Come along, Constable, come along, Keeper. Lennard, you stop
where you are and guard the exit from the arch, so if he doubles on us
he can't get by _you_!"

"Right you are, sir!" responded Lennard, as the superintendent and the
four men made a dash toward that end of the arch through which the
keeper was so positive the fugitive had come.

"I say, Mr. Narkom!" he added, raising his voice and shouting after
them. "Eyes sharp to the left, all of you, when you get outside this
arch. Know the neighbourhood like a book, sir. Lane forks out into a 'Y'
after you get about fifty yards on. Branches off on the left where
there's an old house called Gleer Cottage, sir, that hasn't been
tenanted for years and years. Walled garden--tool house--stable. Great
place for man to hide, sir!"

"Good boy! Thanks!" flung back Narkom. "Come on, my lads! Lively!"

Then they swung out of the arch with a rush, and the last that Lennard
saw of them before the shrouding mist took them and blotted them from
his view, they were pelting up the lane at top speed and making headlong
for the branching "Y" to which he had directed them, their footsteps
sounding on the moist surface of the road and their electric torches
emitting every now and again a spark like a glowworm flashing.

Five minutes passed--the click of their flying steps had dropped off
into silence; the flash of their torches had vanished in the distance
and the mist; even the blurred sound of their excited voices was
stilled; and neither ear nor eye could now detect anything but the soft
drip of the moisture from the roof of the arch and the white oblivion of
the close-pressing, ever-thickening mist.

Still he sat there, waiting--alert, watchful, keen--looking straight
before him and keeping a close watch on the unobstructed end of the
miniature tunnel whose entire length was still flooded with the glare
from the motor's lamps. If a mouse had crawled down its damp walls he
must have seen it; if even so much as a shadow had come up out of that
wilderness of mist and crept into the place, he must have detected, it.
But there was nothing; neither man nor beast, neither shade nor shadow;
only the loneliness and the mist and the soft "plick