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Putting the paper down, he glanced idly out of the window, which commanded a view of the garden, and instantly sprang up. Protruding from behind a bush on the farther side of the tiny lawn was a foot—and it was very still.

He raced out of the room, crossed the lawn, and ran round to the farther side of the bush, and there stopped, paralysed.

Lying on his back, his eyes half closed, his hands clenched in the agony of death, lay the bearded man; and from his waistcoat, immediately above his hands, protruded the long green shaft of an arrow, tipped with vivid green feathers.

Spike knelt down at the dead man's side and sought for some sign of life, but there was none. And then he began to make a rapid survey of the immediate vicinity. The garden was separated from the fields into which it was thrust by a low wooden hedge, over which any agile man could vault. He guessed that Creager had been killed instantaneously and fallen as he had been struck.

Jumping over the hedge, he began his search. Ten paces from the fence was a big oak tree. It lay exactly in line with the arrow's flight. Round this he went, examining the ground almost inch by inch. There were no footprints, and the tree itself was in full view of the road. He looked up, caught one of the low branches, and swung himself up until he was astride. Edging forward, he came at last to a place which gave him a full view of the body. Instinctively he knew that it was from this branch that the arrow had been fired. The tree was leafy and offered cover, and it was likely, since the dead man must have been facing the way the arrow came, that his slayer was out of sight.