“Good fellows—­those three,” he said with a smile.  “What more can you ask than that?  Straight ahead for us, Mr. Narkom.  Sir Nigel tells me the patch of charred grass lies in a direct line with the edge of the Fens where we started our search.  I’m keen to have a look at it.”

Mr. Narkom nodded, and walked on, poking here and there with his stout walking stick.  Cleek did likewise.  They rarely spoke, simply pushed and poked and trod the grass down; searching, searching, searching, as had those other men upon the night of Dacre Wynne’s disappearance.  But they had searched in vain for any clue which would lead to the elucidation of the mystery.

Suddenly Cleek stopped.  He pointed a little ahead of him with his walking stick.

“There you are!” said he briskly.  “The patch of charred grass.”  He strode up to it, stopped and bent his eyes upon it, then suddenly exclaimed:  “Look here!  Below at the roots the fresh grass is springing up in little tender green shoots.  That patch’ll disappear shortly.  And”—­he stopped and sucked in his breath, wheeling round upon Mr. Narkom—­“when you come to think of it, why shouldn’t it have grown up already?  There’s been time enough since the man Wynne’s disappearance to cover up all those singed ends in a new growth.  Can’t be that it’s done on purpose, and yet—­why is it still here?”

“Perhaps some sign or something,” suggested Mr. Narkom.

“Possibly, something of the sort.  And if we have signs then there must be something human behind all this talk of supernatural agents,” returned Cleek.  “Let us take it that this patch of charred grass hides something, or marks the way to something, something buried underneath it, or lying near by.  Eh—­what’s that?”

“That” was a cat-call ringing out across the misty silences from the direction in which Dollops and Petrie had gone.

“They’ve found something!” cried out Mr. Narkom, in a hoarse whisper of excitement.

“Obviously.  Well, this other thing will wait.  We’ll go after them.”

The two of them hastened off in the direction of the repeated cat-call, and soon came upon Dollops bending over something, his eyes rather scared, just as Hammond arrived from the other direction in answer to the summons.  Petrie, too, appeared rather nervous.  As Cleek came up to them, his eyes fell upon the ground, and he stopped stock still.

“Gad!... Where did you find it?”

“Here, sir; half buried, but with the ‘ead a-stickin’ out!” returned Petrie.  “Dollops and I pulled it out and—­and ’ere it is.”

Cleek glanced down at the body of a heavily built man, clad in evening clothes, and already in an advanced state of decomposition.  “Looks like it was that chap Wynne,” he said, in a matter-of-fact tone.  “Answers the description all right.  The other man was short and red-headed.  And the evening clothes are well cut from what I can see.  Must have been a handsome chap—­once....  Well, we’ll have to get this very gruesome find back to the Towers as quickly as possible.  Got your oilskin with you, Petrie?”