on't go losing any sleep over me. I can take care of myself, all
right. But I had to do it pretty energetically last night. A thoughtful
visitor stabbed the pillow I'd placed in bed instead of my humble self,
and cut an incision three inches deep. Hit the mattress, too!"

"Headland, my God--!"

"Now, don't take on so. I tell you I can take care of myself, but you do
the same. No one in the house knows a word about it, and I don't intend
that they shall. The less said the better, in a case like this. Only
those Frozen Flames are trying to eat up something that is either very
serious or very money-making. One thing or the other.... Hello, here we
are! Mornin' Petrie; mornin' Hammond. All ready for the search I see."

The two constables, clad in plain clothes and accompanied by Dollops,
were holding in their hands long pitchforks which looked more as if they
were ready for haymaking than for the gruesome task ahead of them all.
Petrie carried upon his arm a roll of rope. They swung into step behind
the detectives, across the uneven, marshy ground.

It was a chilly morning, and inclined to rain. Across the flat horizon
the mist hung in wraithlike forms of cloudy gray, and the deep grass into
which they plunged their feet was beaded with dew. For a time they walked
on quietly until they had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile. Then Cleek
halted.

"Better separate here," he said, waving his arm out across the sweep of
flat country. "Dollops, you take the right with Petrie. Hammond, you'd
better try the left. Mr. Narkom and I will go straight ahead together.
Any discovery made, just give the usual signal."

They separated at once, their feet upon the thick marshy ground leaving
numberless footprints in the moist rank grass, which crushed under them
like wet hay. Their heads were bent, their eyes fixed upon the ground,
their faces bearing a look of utter concentration. Cleek watched them
moving slowly across the wide, flat reaches of the Fens, stopping now and
then to poke among the rank marsh-grass, and prod into the earth, and
then turned to Mr. Narkom.

"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 l