The man was lanky and shabby. He had a brown beard, long enough to move in the wind. He fidgeted, and looked from the policeman to the woman as each spoke. She talked up into the policeman’s face, her small bosom almost touching his bulk.
“I tell you, you can’t come in now, and that’s all about it,” the policeman said. “You clear off.”
Bell arrived. “What’s all this, George?”
“Blunt and his daughter, sir. Making out they want to get digging here.”
“Oh do you?” Bell turned on them. The man drew back, deprecating, cringing. His blue eyes, vague and melancholy, looked from Bell to Reggie, and looked away.
“You’ve got no nght to stop us,” the woman said. “It’s our ground.” She was a compact little person; she quivered anger and energy.
“Your ground wants digging all right,” said Bell stolidly. “Funny you didn’t get on to it a bit earlier. Won’t hurt you to wait another day now.”
“You brute,” she cried. “You know father’s been ill.”
“Has he? Oh. Move ‘em along, George.”
“Think you can trample on us,” - she stammered - “you’re all like that - you - -”
“Jessie, Jessie,” her father wailed. “Don’t, dear. It’s no good.”
“That’s right, you take her home, Blunt.” The policeman shepherded them away.
“Funny, eh?” said Bell to Reggie.
“You think so?” Reggie watched their departure. The man stooped and limped. “Well, well.” He went into the allotment.
“I mean to say, leaving the ground all waste and then suddenly having to get on with it,” Bell explained, as he followed. Reggie made a plaintive sound. “There’s the hut, over there.” Reggie gave him a look of wonder and gloom, and stood still. The allotment had no path in it, but some footprints marked the dry crumbling soil - confused footprints, small and large. “Rather a mess, isn’t it?” said Bell.
“Yes. Somebody’s made a mess,” Reggie sighed.
“Of course, our fellows have been here.”
“That is indicated. Yes. In daylight. I suppose policemen can walk straight in the light.”
“There’s a woman’s footprints too,” Bell pointed out. “Looks like the Blunts have been here already.”
“My Bell! Oh, my Bell!” Reggie complained. “Your theory was that a Blunt or so had been here. From the burglary. Leavin’ blood behind.”
“I didn’t say the girl had.”
“No. You did not. However. Don’t go on sayin’. Don’t go on movin’.” Reggie wandered about the allotment. The footprints of a woman were clearly marked, to and from the hut, in among many prints of men. Elsewhere there were dragged footmarks, inconsecutive and obscure.
“Like Blunt’s limping walk,” said Bell.
Reggie turned to look at him. “You noticed that? Yes. He does limp. Oh, my hat; what a case!”
They came at last to the hut, a ramshackle thing of old timbers and corrugated iron, and went in. Tools stood in one corner, an old chair in another. In the middle, the bare earth of the floor was covered with empty sacks and some ragged coconut matting. On that, Bell pointed out dark stains.
Reggie surveyed them and frowned at them, and wandered about the hut.
“We couldn’t find any anywhere else,” Bell explained.
“No. And yet there aren’t any,” Reggie sighed. “Marvellous. However. Certain other things. Several breadcrumbs, not very ancient. An empty bottle which has held milk lately. And a scrap of clean cotton rag.”
“I don’t know what you can make of all that,” said Bell.
“Not conclusive. No. Nothing is. But interesting. And what is most interesting is why the bleeder bled just there on the matting in the middle. If we knew, we mightn’t know anything.” He cut out the bloodstains and packed them away. “That exhausts that. Come on.”
