he scorched over the ground:

"Mr. Narkom! Mr. Narkom! This way, sir, this way! This way!"

CHAPTER TWO

HOW THE CHASE ENDED

Meanwhile Mr. Narkom and his zealous assistants had rushed wildly on,
coming forth at last from the old railway arch into the narrow lane
without so much as catching a glimpse or finding the slightest trace of
either victim or murderer.

But that they had not all been deceived by an hallucination of the
night, received proof from the triumphant discovery of Sergeant Petrie,
who, with the aid of his torch and the bull's-eye lantern of Constable
Mellish, had found the unmistakable traces of hurried footsteps on the
soft, yielding earth.

"Lummy, sir! the place is alive with 'em," ejaculated Mellish. "This is
the way he went, sir, down this 'ere lane, and makin' for the right of
way across the fields, like wot that shuvver of yours said, sir."

Narkom, Hammond, and Petrie were at his side before he had finished
speaking. It was true, other footprints were there, all the lonely
tree-girt road was full of them, going down the centre in one long,
unbroken line. They stopped but a moment to make sure of this, then rose
and dashed on in the direction which they led.

Straight on, down the middle of the thoroughfare, without break or
interruption, the foot-made trail drew them; under dripping
overshadowing trees; by natural hedges and unnatural mounds where weeds
and briars scrambled over piles of debris, and the light of their
torches showed Narkom and his men the dim irregular outlines of a
crumbling wall, green with moss and lichen and higher in parts than a
man's head.

On and still on, the deeply dug footprints lessening not a whit in their
clearness, until, all of a moment, they swerved slightly to the left and
then abruptly stopped--stopped dead short, and after that were seen no
more!

"Here's where he went!" called out Hammond, pointing to the left as
Narkom and the others, in a sort of panic, went running round and
endeavouring to pick up the lost trail. "Look, sir--grass here and the
wall beyond. Hopped over on to the grass, that's what he did, then
scaled the wall and 'went to earth' like an idiot in that old house
Lennard told us of. Come along--quick!

"Fair copped him, sir, as sure as eggs," he added excitedly, plunging in
through the mist and the shadow of the trees until he came to the wall
in question. "Break in the wall here, coping gone, dry dust of newly
crumbl