I saw the Sergeant start as the shiver of the sand caught his eye. After
looking at it for a minute or so, he turned and came back to me.
"A treacherous place, Mr. Betteredge," he said; "and no signs of Rosanna
Spearman anywhere on the beach, look where you may."
He took me down lower on the shore, and I saw for myself that his
footsteps and mine were the only footsteps printed off on the sand.
"How does the fishing village bear, standing where we are now?" asked
Sergeant Cuff.
"Cobb's Hole," I answered (that being the name of the place), "bears as
near as may be, due south."
"I saw the girl this evening, walking northward along the shore, from
Cobb's Hole," said the Sergeant. "Consequently, she must have been
walking towards this place. Is Cobb's Hole on the other side of that
point of land there? And can we get to it--now it's low water--by the
beach?"
I answered, "Yes," to both those questions.
"If you'll excuse my suggesting it, we'll step out briskly," said the
Sergeant. "I want to find the place where she left the shore, before it
gets dark."
We had walked, I should say, a couple of hundred yards towards Cobb's
Hole, when Sergeant Cuff suddenly went down on his knees on the beach,
to all appearance seized with a sudden frenzy for saying his prayers.
"There's something to be said for your marine landscape here, after
all," remarked the Sergeant. "Here are a woman's footsteps, Mr.
Betteredge! Let us call them Rosanna's footsteps, until we find evidence
to the contrary that we can't resist. Very confused footsteps, you will
please to observe--purposely confused, I should say. Ah, poor soul, she
understands the detective virtues of sand as well as I do! But hasn't
she been in rather too great a hurry to tread out the marks thoroughly?
I think she has. Here's one footstep going FROM Cobb's Hole; and here
is another going back to it. Isn't that the toe of her shoe pointing
straight to the water's edge? And don't I see two heel-marks further
down the beach, close at the water's edge also? I don't want to hurt
your feelings, but I'm afraid Rosanna is sly. It looks as if she had
determined to get to that place you and I have just come from, without
leaving any marks on the sand to trace her by. Shall we say that she
walked through the water from this point till she got to that ledge of
rocks behind us, and came back the same way, and then took to the beach
again where those two heel marks are still left? Yes, we'll say that. It
seems to fit in with my notion that she had something under her cloak,
when she left the cottage. No! not something to destroy--for, in that
case, where would have been the need of all these precautions to prevent
my tracing the place at which her walk ended? Something to hide is, I
think, the better guess of the two. Perhaps, if we go on to the cottage,
we may find out what that something is?"