Fletcher replied, "only you must be careful what you talk
about. Remember, the death of uncle has been quite a shock to her--he
was her only relative besides myself."

"I will," promised Kennedy, "and by the way, she may think it strange
that I'm out here at a time like this. Perhaps you had better tell
her I'm a nerve specialist or something of that sort--anything not to
connect me with the robbery, which you say you haven't told her about."

The next morning found Kennedy out bright and early, for he had not had
a very good chance to do anything during the night except reconstruct
the details. He was now down by the back gate with his camera, where I
found him turning it end-down and photographing the road. Together we
made a thorough search of the woods and the road about the gate, but
could discover absolutely nothing.

After breakfast I improvised a dark room and developed the films, while
Craig went down the back lane along the shore "looking for clues," as he
said briefly. Toward noon he returned, and I could see that he was in
a brown study. So I said nothing, but handed him the photographs of
the road. He took them and laid them down in a long line on the library
floor. They seemed to consist of little ridges of dirt on either side
of a series of regular round spots, some of the spots very clear and
distinct on the sides, others quite obscure in the centre. Now and then
where you would expect to see one of the spots, just for the symmetry of
the thing, it was missing. As I looked at the line of photographs on the
floor I saw that they were a photograph of the track made by the tire of
an automobile, and I suddenly recalled what the gardener had said.

Next Craig produced the results of his morning's work, which consisted
of several dozen sheets of white paper, carefully separated into three
bundles. These he also laid down in long lines on the floor, each
package in a separate line. Then I began to realise what he was doing,
and became fascinated in watching him on his hands and knees eagerly
scanning the papers and comparing them with the photographs. At last
he gathered up two of the sets of papers very decisively and threw them
away. Then he shifted the third set a bit, and laid it closely parallel
to the photographs.

"Look at these, Walter," he said. "Now take this deep and sharp
indentation. Well, there's a corresponding one in the photograph. So you
can pick them out one for another. Now here's one