e drugged the
lad? That would have been a deal simpler."

"Because Steggles is a good trainer, and has a certain reputation to keep
up. It would have done him no good to have had a runner drugged while
under his care; certainly it would have cooked his goose with _you_. It
was much the safer thing to connive at kidnapping. That put all the active
work into other hands, and left him safe, even if the trick failed. Now,
you remember that we traced the prints of Crockett's spiked shoes to
within a couple of yards from the fence, and that there they ceased
suddenly?"

"Yes. You said it looked as though he had flown up into the air; and so it
did."

"But I was sure that it was by that gate that Crockett had left, and by no
other. He couldn't have got through the house without being seen, and
there was no other way--let alone the evidence of the unbolted gate.
Therefore, as the footprints ceased where they did, and were not repeated
anywhere in the lane, I knew that he had taken his spiked shoes
off--probably changed them for something else, because a runner anxious as
to his chances would never risk walking on bare feet, with a chance of
cutting them. Ordinary, broad, smooth-soled slippers would leave no
impression on the coarse cinders bordering the track, and nothing short of
spiked shoes would leave a mark on the hard path in the lane behind. The
spike-tracks were leading, not directly toward the door, but in the
direction of the fence, when they stopped; somebody had handed, or thrown,
the slippers over the fence, and he had changed them on the spot. The
enemy had calculated upon the spikes leaving a track in the lane that
might lead us in our search, and had arranged accordingly.

"So far so good. I could see no footprints near the gate in the lane. You
will remember that I sent Steggles off to watch at the Cop before I went
out to the back--merely, of course, to get him out of the way. I went out
into the lane, leaving you behind, and walked its whole length, first
toward the Old Kilns and then back toward the road. I found nothing to
help me except these small pieces of paper--which are here in my
pocket-book, by the by. Of course this 'mmy' might have meant 'Jimmy' or
'Tommy' as possibly as 'Sammy,' but they were not to be rejected on that
account. Certainly Crockett had been decoyed out of your ground, not taken
by force, or there would have been marks of a scuffle in the cinders. And
as his request for a sweate