Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/150

136 boulder whereon I had stood when the pair of fugitives had disappeared.

"Look!" I cried. "There's the spot!" And quickly we clambered down the steep bank, lowering ourselves by the branches of the trees until we came to the water into which I waded, being followed closely by my two companions.

On gaining the opposite side I clambered up to the base of the boulder and lowered my lantern to reveal to them the gruesome evidence of the second crime, but next instant I cried —

"Why! It's gone!"

"Gone!" gasped the two men.

"Yes. It was here. Look! this is the hole where they buried it! But they evidently returned, and finding it exhumed, they've retaken possession of it and carried it away!"

The two detectives gazed down to where I indicated, and then looked at each other without exchanging a word.