In rainy seasons it was probably wider, for all the earth and clay had been washed away for some feet on each side, leaving flat, bare and very coa.r.s.e gravel, on which the trail was lost. Just beyond this, and to the left, the body lay on a gra.s.sy knoll under the limb of a tree, from which still depended a part of the cut rope. It was not a pleasant sight. The man was a soft, fleshy creature, probably rather under than over the medium height, and he lay there, with his stretched neck and protruding tongue, a revolting object. His right arm lay by his side, and the stump of the wrist was clotted with black blood. Mr. Hardwick"s man was still in charge, seemingly little pleased with his job, and a few yards off stood a couple of countrymen looking on.
Hewitt asked from which direction these men had come, and having ascertained and noticed their footmarks, he asked them to stay exactly where they were, to avoid confusing such other tracks as might be seen.
Then he addressed himself to his examination. "_First_," he said, glancing up at the branch, that was scarce a yard above his head, "this rope has been here for some time."
"Yes," Mr. Hardwick replied, "it"s an old swing rope. Some children used it in the summer, but it got partly cut away, and the odd couple of yards has been hanging since."
"Ah," said Hewitt, "then if the Fosters did this they were saved some trouble by the chance, and were able to take their halter back with them--and so avoid _one_ chance of detection." He very closely scrutinised the top of a tree stump, probably the relic of a tree that had been cut down long before, and then addressed himself to the body.
"When you cut it down," he said, "did it fall in a heap?"
"No, my man eased it down to some extent."
"Not on to its face?"
"Oh no. On to its back, just as it is now." Mr. Hardwick saw that Hewitt was looking at muddy marks on each of the corpse"s knees, to one of which a small leaf clung, and at one or two other marks of the same sort on the fore part of the dress. "That seems to show pretty plainly,"
he said, "that he must have struggled with them and was thrown forward, doesn"t it?"
Hewitt did not reply, but gingerly lifted the right arm by its sleeve.
"Is either of the brothers Foster left-handed?" he asked.
"No, I think not. Here, Bennett, you have seen plenty of their doings--cricket, shooting, and so on--do you remember if either is left-handed?"
"Nayther, sir," Mr. Hardwick"s man answered. "Both on "em"s right-handed."
Hewitt lifted the lapel of the coat and attentively regarded a small rent in it. The dead man"s hat lay near, and after a few glances at that, Hewitt dropped it and turned his attention to the hair. This was coa.r.s.e and dark and long, and brushed straight back with no parting.
"This doesn"t look very symmetrical, does it?" Hewitt remarked, pointing to the locks over the right ear. They were shorter just there than on the other side, and apparently very clumsily cut, whereas in every other part the hair appeared to be rather well and carefully trimmed. Mr.
Hardwick said nothing, but fidgeted a little, as though he considered that valuable time was being wasted over irrelevant trivialities.
Presently, however, he spoke. "There"s very little to be learned from the body, is there?" he said. "I think I"m quite justified in ordering their arrest, eh?--indeed, I"ve wasted too much time already."
Hewitt was groping about among some bushes behind the tree from which the corpse had been taken. When he answered, he said, "I don"t think I should do anything of the sort just now, Mr. Hardwick. As a matter of fact, I _fancy_"--this word with an emphasis--"that the brothers Foster may not have seen this man Sneathy at all to-day."
"Not seen him? Why, my dear sir, there"s no question of it. It"s certain, absolutely. The evidence is positive. The fact of the threats and of the body being found treated so is pretty well enough, I should think. But that"s nothing--look at those footmarks. They"ve walked along with him, one each side, without a possible doubt; plainly they were the last people with him, in any case. And you don"t mean to ask anybody to believe that the dead man, even if he hanged himself, cut off his own hand first. Even if you do, where"s the hand? And even putting aside all these considerations, each a complete case in itself, the Fosters _must_ at least have seen the body as they came past, and yet nothing has been heard of them yet. Why didn"t they spread the alarm? They went straight away in the opposite direction from home--there are their footmarks, which you"ve not seen yet, beyond the gravel."
Hewitt stepped over to where the patch of clean gravel ceased, at the opposite side to that from which we had approached the brook, and there, sure enough, were the now familiar footmarks of the brothers leading away from the scene of Sneathy"s end. "Yes," Hewitt said, "I see them.
Of course, Mr. Hardwick, you"ll do what seems right in your own eyes, and in any case not much harm will be done by the arrest beyond a terrible fright for that unfortunate family. Nevertheless, if you care for my impression, it is, as I have said, that the Fosters have not seen Sneathy to-day."
"But what about the hand?"
"As to that I have a conjecture, but as yet it is only a conjecture, and if I told it you would probably call it absurd--certainly you"d disregard it, and perhaps quite excusably. The case is a complicated one, and, if there is anything at all in my conjecture, one of the most remarkable I have ever had to do with. It interests me intensely, and I shall devote a little time now to following up the theory I have formed.
You have, I suppose, already communicated with the police?"
"I wired to Shopperton at once, as soon as I heard of the matter. It"s a twelve miles drive, but I wonder the police have not arrived yet. They can"t be long; I don"t know where the village constable has got to, but in any case _he_ wouldn"t be much good. But as to your idea that the Fosters can"t be suspected--well, n.o.body could respect your opinion, Mr.
Hewitt, more than myself, but really, just think. The notion"s impossible--fiftyfold impossible. As soon as the police arrive I shall have that trail followed and the Fosters apprehended. I should be a fool if I didn"t."
"Very well, Mr. Hardwick," Hewitt replied; "you"ll do what you consider your duty, of course, and quite properly, though I _would_ recommend you to take another glance at those three trails in the path. I shall take a look in this direction." And he turned up by the side of the streamlet, keeping on the gravel at its side.
I followed. We climbed the rising ground, and presently, among the trees, came to the place where the little rill emerged from the broken ground in the highest part of the wood. Here the clean ground ceased, and there was a large patch of wet clayey earth. Several marks left by the feet of cattle were there, and one or two human footmarks. Two of these (a pair), the newest and the most distinct, Hewitt studied carefully, and measured each direction.
"Notice these marks," he said. "They may be of importance or they may not--that we shall see. Fortunately they are very distinctive--the right boot is a badly worn one, and a small tag of leather, where the soul is damaged, is doubled over and trodden into the soft earth. Nothing could be luckier. Clearly they are the most recent footsteps in this direction--from the main road, which lies right ahead, through the rest of the wood."
"Then you think somebody else has been on the scene of the tragedy, beside the victim and the brothers?" I said.
"Yes, I do. But hark; there is a vehicle in the road. Can you see between the trees? Yes, it is the police cart. We shall be able to report its arrival to Mr. Hardwick as we go down."
We turned and walked rapidly down the incline to where we had come from.
Mr. Hardwick and his man were still there, and another rustic had arrived to gape. We told Mr. Hardwick that he might expect the police presently, and proceeded along the gravel skirting the stream, toward the lower part of the wood.
Here Hewitt proceeded very cautiously, keeping a sharp look-out on either side for footprints on the neighbouring soft ground. There were none, however, for the gravel margin of the stream made a sort of footpath of itself, and the trees and undergrowth were close and thick on each side. At the bottom we emerged from the wood on a small piece of open ground skirting a lane, and here, just by the side of the lane, where the stream fell into a trench, Hewitt suddenly pounced on another footmark. He was unusually excited.
"See," he said, "here it is--the right foot with its broken leather, and the corresponding left foot on the damp edge of the lane itself. He--the man with the broken shoe--has walked on the hard gravel all the way down from the source of the stream, and his is the only trail unaccounted for near the body. Come, Brett, we"ve an adventure on foot. Do you care to let your uncle"s dinner go by the board, and follow?"
"Can"t we go back and tell him?"
"No--there"s no time to lose; we must follow up this man--or at least I must. You go or stay, of course, as you think best."
I hesitated a moment, picturing to myself the excellent Colonel as he would appear after waiting dinner an hour or two for us, but decided to go. "At any rate," I said, "if the way lies along the roads we shall probably meet somebody going in the direction of Ratherby who will take a message. But what is your theory? I don"t understand at all. I must say everything Hardwick said seemed to me to be beyond question. There were the tracks to prove that the three had walked together to the spot, and that the brothers had gone on alone; and every other circ.u.mstance pointed the same way. Then, what possible motive could anybody else about here have for such a crime? Unless, indeed, it were one of the people defrauded by Sneathy"s late companies."
"The motive," said Hewitt, "is, I fancy, a most extraordinary--indeed, a weird one. A thing as of centuries ago. Ask me no questions--I think you will be a little surprised before very long. But come, we must move."
And we mended our pace along the lane.
The lane, by the bye, was hard and firm, with scarcely a spot where a track might be left, except in places at the sides; and at these places Hewitt never gave a glance. At the end the lane turned into a by-road, and at the turning Hewitt stopped and scrutinised the ground closely.
There was nothing like a recognisable footmark to be seen; but almost immediately Hewitt turned off to the right, and we continued our brisk march without a glance at the road.
"How did you judge which way to turn then?" I asked.
"Didn"t you see?" replied Hewitt; "I"ll show you at the next turning."
Half a mile farther on the road forked, and here Hewitt stooped and pointed silently to a couple of small twigs, placed crosswise, with the longer twig of the two pointing down the branch of the road to the left.
We took the branch to the left, and went on.
"Our man"s making a mistake," Hewitt observed. "He leaves his friends"
messages lying about for his enemies to read."
We hurried forward with scarcely a word. I was almost too bewildered by what Hewitt had said and done to formulate anything like a reasonable guess as to what our expedition tended, or even to make an effective inquiry--though, after what Hewitt had said, I knew that would be useless. Who was this mysterious man with the broken shoe? what had he to do with the murder of Sneathy? what did the mutilation mean? and who were his friends who left him signs and messages by means of crossed twigs?
We met a man, by whom I sent a short note to my uncle, and soon after we turned into a main road. Here again, at the corner, was the curious message of twigs. A cart-wheel had pa.s.sed over and crushed them, but it had not so far displaced them as to cause any doubt that the direction to take was to the right. At an inn a little farther along we entered, and Hewitt bought a pint of Irish whisky and a flat bottle to hold it in, as well as a loaf of bread and some cheese, which we carried away wrapped in paper.
"This will have to do for our dinner," Hewitt said as we emerged.
"But we"re not going to drink a pint of common whisky between us?" I asked in some astonishment.
"Never mind," Hewitt answered with a smile. "Perhaps we"ll find somebody to help us--somebody not so fastidious as yourself as to quality."
Now we hurried--hurried more than ever, for it was beginning to get dusk, and Hewitt feared a difficulty in finding and reading the twig signs in the dark. Two more turnings we made, each with its silent direction--the crossed twigs. To me there was something almost weird and creepy in this curious hunt for the invisible and incomprehensible, guided faithfully and persistently at every turn by this now unmistakable signal. After the second turning we broke into a trot along a long, winding lane, but presently Hewitt"s hand fell on my shoulder, and we stopped. He pointed ahead, where some large object, round a bend of the hedge was illuminated as though by a light from below.
"We will walk now," Hewitt said. "Remember that we are on a walking tour, and have come along here entirely by accident."