before. He walked on till he came to the place where Green
had found the strip of brown cloth, which was fairly plain to find, for
the footsteps of Green and the other police officers when they followed
the trail ceased there as Grell's had done.

Here he drew a small pocket-compass from his waistcoat pocket, and
pressing a spring released the needle. As it came to rest he thrust
aside the hazel bushes and plunged in among the undergrowth. Now and
again he consulted the compass as he walked leisurely forward, wet
branches brushing his face and whipping at his clothes. For the brief
portion of the way a keeper's path facilitated his progress, but at last
he was forced to abandon this and return to the wilder portion of the
wood. He was making a detour which he hoped would lead him to the back
of Dalehurst Grange.

At last he could see a clear space ahead of him, and in a little,
sinking on his knees on a bank, was peering downhill to an
old-fashioned, Jacobean manor-house, from whose chimney smoke was lazily
wreathing upward. Between him and the house a meadow sloped for a
hundred yards, and the back of the house was bounded by an irregular
orchard.

"Pity I didn't think to bring a pair of field-glasses," muttered Foyle,
as his eyes swept the place. "I can't tell how those mullioned windows
are protected. Well, I may as well make myself comfortable, I suppose."

A little search rewarded him with a great oak tree, and in the fork of a
branch twenty feet high he found an easy seat from which he could watch
the house without any great risk of being seen himself. Immobile as a
statue, he remained till long after dusk had fallen and a steady light
appeared at one of the windows. It was, in fact, ten o'clock, and the
light had disappeared when he dropped quietly to earth and, with quick
footsteps, began to cross the meadow to the orchard.

Under the fruit trees the detective moved slower and held his stick
before him, softly tapping the ground as though he were blind. He had
not taken half-a-dozen steps before the stick touched something
stretched about a foot from the ground. Stooping, he groped in the
darkness.

"A cord," he muttered. "Now I wonder if that is merely a precaution
against burglars or----" and, stepping over the obstacle, he went on
cautiously feeling his way. Twice more he found cords stretched across
the grass, so that an unwary intruder might be tripped up, but his
caution enabled him to avoid them.