'Not a bad idea. Where do I find these riding stables?'
'The other side of the water-splash. Don't go through the splash or over the footbridge. Keep straight on and then turn left. There's a footpath across a bit of common.'
'It sounds complicated. I'll walk with you.'
'All right. It's a far better idea, really it is.'
So the two young men set out for the site of Richardson's camp. Denis had a camera and photographed a Forest pony and her half-grown chestnut foal. Three-quarters of the way along the beautiful road which led to the common, he insisted upon stopping at the 'pound' to obtain a picture of a farmer, his wife and his cowman urging an extremely lively bull calf to climb up a ramp into a lorry. Richardson was impatient to get on, and was almost dancing by the time his friend was satisfied.
'Nobody would think I'm threatened with the hangman,' he complained, when at last they were on their way again. 'Now don't waste any more time, and do forget that blasted box camera of yours for a bit. I didn't even bring mine.'
They soon reached the causeway. It led away from the gravelled road and ran straight and true (and was, in places, extremely muddy) between the sparsely-planted young pines and the heather, by the side of the drainage ditches, until it entered the narrow wood. Here Denis stood still and gazed about him.
'Rather good, isn't it?' said Richardson.
'How did you find the way here in the first place?' Denis demanded. 'You didn't know the neighbourhood, did you?'
'Oh, I thought I'd told you that I came down one Saturday, ages ago, and nosed around and prospected and so forth. Mind you, I didn't tell the Superintendent that. It wouldn't do to let him think I knew the countryside before I got let in for this business.'
'I see. Do we cross this little bridge?'
'We do, and follow the path to the right.'
They did this, and watched the sunshine and shadow on the stream before going on again. After a bit they came upon a gate which led into an enclosure. Denis indicated the gate.
'Can we go this way?'
'I suppose so, although I never have. It's only on a latch, so it's all right, so long as we shut it after us. Looks as though the foresters have been busy.'
The inviting path on the other side of the gate was broad and clearly marked, and bore the imprint, here and there, where the ground was soft, of car tyres and caterpillar wheels. Denis produced a magnifying glass and studied the imprints with exaggerated thoroughness.
'No hoof-prints,' he observed. They walked on again, past the grey, smooth trunks of a couple of felled beeches on the right-hand side of the path, and a magnificent Scots pine, prone across the bracken, on the left. The path mounted gradually. Suddenly Denis, who was in the lead, stopped short. 'I'm going back,' he said. A gaggle of geese, eight in all, had formed a line across the path, which led straight into a farmyard. 'Geese horrify me. I'd rather face a pride of lions.'
'There's a dog, too,' said Richardson, in practical tones. 'Besides, about geese I really do agree. I told you I'd never been this way, and now you see that my instinct was sound.'
They retraced their steps and again followed the path beside the water. It narrowed and grew lumpy and then muddy. Then it turned almost at right-angles on to a miry track with led across the gravelled road and on to the open heath. Richardson pointed out the big house from which he had tried to telephone.
'You don't think there's anything suspicious in the circumstance that the owner of the house happened to be away on the very day you discovered a dead man in your tent?' Denis suggested.
'Oh, I hardly imagine so. Just a coincidence, I would say. And I certainly don't attach any importance to the fact that the maid wouldn't let me use the telephone. For all she knew, it might have been an impudent attempt on my part to get into the house with burglarious intentions. Besides, women-servants always think somebody is determined to murder them in their beds, although why in their beds I can't think. One would suppose the last thing to do on their part would be to stay in bed if a homicidal maniac was loose about the place. Personally, I should want to be up and about, preferably with my shoes on.'
'Yes, it's odd how helpless one feels with bare feet if there's any rough stuff going-Judo excepted, of course. Where do we go from here?'
'We follow the main track as far as those gorse bushes and then branch off on to a kind of secondary track which pretty well follows the flow of the river.'
Pursuing this course, they soon came upon the former site of Richardson's camp. It was marked by two young oak trees, about fifteen yards apart, which formed a landmark against the surrounding gorse and some low- growing thorn trees. More gorse and bracken screened the little clearing from the main track, but Richardson, who had chosen the spot because, besides being easily identifiable, it was secluded, now looked upon it with a different eye. He indicated the gorse and said,
'Somebody could have lain up hidden and watched my movements. I'd never have known he was there.'
Denis did not answer. He searched all the tiny paths which ran among the gorse. Richardson strolled over in the opposite direction, that in which the river, shallow at this point, ran with a quietly insistent murmur over the stones. Denis soon joined him. When they were together again, Richardson remarked,
'You know, it occurs to me that it would have been frightfully easy to have brought the body across the river from the other side. Come and see.'
He led the way to where a loop in the stream had laid bare two spits of gravel. They were not opposite one another, but lay in a long slant with perhaps twelve yards of very shallow water between them. Denis looked long and thoughtfully at this possible ford.
'I don't know about that,' he said. 'Could be, I suppose. Let's see how the road runs.'
