Page:Bedford-Jones--The Mardi Gras Mystery.djvu/220

 Hammond being bundled in beside him. The other two men climbed in beside the body, rifles in hand. Chacherre started the car toward the road.

"All fine!" thought Gramont with a thrill of exultation. "They've all cleared out and left the place to me—and I want a look at that place."

Suddenly, as he stood there, he remembered the slight "plump" that he had heard during that interminable silence which had followed the conversation between the sheriff and Ben Chacherre. It was a sound as though something had fallen near him in the soggy ground.

The remembrance startled him strangely. He visualized an excited murderer standing beside his victim, knife in hand; he visualized the abhorrence which must have seized the man for a moment—the abhorrence which must have caused him to do something in that moment which in a cooler time he would not have done.

Gramont turned toward the little marshy spot where he had lain listening. He bent down, searching the wet ground, heedless that the water soaked into his boots. And, after a minute, a low exclamation of satisfaction broke from him as he found what he sought.