From amid the mud and the fallen leaves he retrieved a tiny, glittering object-a flash of white and green between his fingertips.
It was a little charm such as women hang upon a bracelet-a diminutive diamond cat with eyes of bright emerald.
CHAPTER III
"Other things are all very well in their way, but give me Blood.
We say, 'There it is! that's Blood!' It is an actual matter of fact. We point it out. It admits of no doubt… We must have Blood, you know."
– David Copperfield
"Hitherto," said Lord Peter, as they picked their painful way through the little wood on the trail of Gent's No. 10's, "I have always maintained that those obliging criminals who strew their tracks with little articles of personal adornment-here he is, on a squashed fungus-were an invention of detective fiction for the benefit of the author. I see that I have still something to learn about my job."
"Well, you haven't been at it very long, have you?" said Parker. "Besides, we don't know that the diamond cat is the criminal's. It may belong to a member of your own family, and have been lying here for days. It may belong to Mr. What's-his-name in the States, or to the last tenant but one, and have been lying here for years. This broken branch may be our friend-I think it is."
"I'll ask the family," said Lord Peter, "and we could find out in the village if anyone's ever inquired for a lost cat. They're pukka stones. It ain't the sort of thing one would drop without making a fuss about-I've lost him altogether."
"It's all right-I've got him. He's tripped over a root."
"Serve him glad," said Lord Peter viciously, straightening his back. "I say, I don't think the human frame is very thoughtfully constructed for this sleuthhound business. If one could go on all-fours, or had eyes in one's knees, it would be a lot more practical."
"There are many difficulties inherent in a teleological view of creation," said Parker placidly. "Ah! here we are at the park palings."
"And here's where he got over," said Lord Peter, pointing to a place where the chevaux de frise on the top was broken away. "Here's the dent where his heels came down, and here's where he fell forward on hands and knees. H'm! Give us a back, old man, would you? Thanks. An old break, I see. Mr. Montague-now-in-the-States should keep his palings in better order. No. 10 tore his coat on the spikes all the same; he left a fragment of Burberry behind him. What luck! Here's a deep, damp ditch on the other side, which I shall now proceed to fall into."
A slithering crash proclaimed that he had carried out his intention. Parker, thus callously abandoned, looked round, and, seeing that they were only a hundred yards or so from the gate, ran along and was let out, decorously, by Hardraw, the gamekeeper, who happened to be coming out of the lodge.
"By the way," said Parker to him, "did you ever find any signs of any poachers on Wednesday night after all?"
"Nay," said the man, "not so much as a dead rabbit. I reckon t'lady wor mistaken, an 'twore the [garbled] heard as killed t'Captain."
"Possibly," said Parker. "Do you know how long [garbled] have been broken off the palings over there?"
"A moonth or two, happen. They should 'a' bin put right, but the man's sick."
"The gate's locked at night, I suppose?"
"Aye."
"Anybody wishing to get in would have to waken you?"
"Aye, that he would."
"You didn't see any suspicious character loitering about outside these palings last Wednesday, I suppose?"
"Nay, sir, but my wife may ha' done. Hey, lass!"
Mrs. Hardraw, thus summoned, appeared at the door with a small boy clinging to her skirts.
"Wednesday?" said she. "Nay, I saw no loiterin' folks. I keep a look-out for tramps and such, as it be such a lonely place. Wednesday. Eh, now, John, that wad be t'day t'young mon called wi' t'motor-bike."
"Young man with a motor-bike?"
"I reckon 'twas. He said he'd had a puncture and asked for a bucket o' watter."
"Was that all the asking he did?"
"He asked what were t'name o' t'place and whose house it were."
"Did you tell him the Duke of Denver was living here?"
"Aye, sir, and he said he supposed a many gentlemen came up for t'shooting."
"Did he say where he was going?"
"He said he'd coom oop fra' Weirdale an' were makin' a trip into Coomberland."
"How long was he here?"
"Happen half an hour. An' then he tried to get his machine started, an' I see him hop-hoppitin' away towards King's Fenton."
She pointed away to the right, where Lord Peter might be seen gesticulating in the middle of the road.
"What sort of a man was he?"
Like most people, Mrs. Hardraw was poor at definition.
She thought he was youngish and tallish, neither dark nor fair, in such a long coat as motor-bicyclists use, with a belt round it.
"Was he a gentleman?"
Mrs. Hardraw hesitated, and Mr. Parker mentally classed the stranger as "Not quite quite."
"You didn't happen to notice the number of the bicycle?"
Mrs. Hardraw had not. "But it had a side-car," she added.
Lord Peter's gesticulations were becoming quite violent, and Mr. Parker hastened to rejoin him.
"Come on, gossiping old thing," said Lord Peter unreasonably.
"This is a beautiful ditch.
From such a ditch as this,
When the soft wind did gently kiss the trees
And they did make no noise, from such a ditch
Our friend, methinks, mounted the Troyan walls,
And wiped his soles upon the greasy mud.
Look at my trousers!"
"It's a bit of a climb from this side," said Parker.
"It is. He stood here in the ditch, and put one foot into this place where the paling's broken away and one hand on the top, and hauled himself up. No. 10 must have been a man of exceptional height, strength, and agility. I couldn't get my foot up, let alone reaching the top with my hand. I'm five foot nine. Could you?"
Parker was six foot, and could just touch the top of the wall with his hand.
"I could do it-on one of my best days," he said, "with an adequate object, or after adequate stimulant."
"Just so," said Lord Peter. "Hence we deduce No 10's exceptional height and strength."
"Yes," said Parker. "It's a bit unfortunate that we had to deduce his exceptional shortness and weakness just now, isn't it?"
"Oh!" said Peter. "Well-well, as you so rightly say, that is a bit unfortunate."
"Well, it may clear up presently. He didn't have a confederate to give him a back or a leg, I suppose?"
"Not unless the confederate was a being without feet or any visible means of support," said Lord Peter, indicating the solitary print of a pair of patched 10s. "By the way, how did he make straight in the dark for the place where the spikes were missing? Looks as though he belonged to the neighbourhood, or had reconnoitred previously."
"Arising out of that reply," said Parker, "I will now relate to you the entertaining 'gossip' I have had with Mrs. Hardraw."
"Humph!" said Wimsey at the end of it. "That's interesting. We'd better make inquiries at Riddlesdale and King's Fenton. Meanwhile we know where No. 10 came from; now where did he go after leaving Cathcart's body by the well?"
"The footsteps went into the preserve," said Parker. "I lost them there. There is a regular carpet of dead leaves and bracken."
"Well, but we needn't go through all that sleuth grind again," objected his friend. "The fellow went in, and, as he presumably is not there still, he came out again. He didn't come out through the gate or Hardraw would have seen him; he didn't come out the same way he went in or he would have left some traces. Therefore he came out elsewhere. Let's walk round the wall."