There were three doors by which the house could be entered, and all of them Walter tried and found locked. Therefore, noticing in the rubbish-heap some stray pieces of paper, he at once turned his attention to what he discovered were fragments of a torn letter. It was written in French, and, apparently, had reference to certain securities held by the tenant of The Yews.
But as only a small portion of the destroyed communication could be found, its purport was not very clear, and the name and address of the writer could not be ascertained.
Yet it had already been proved without doubt that the mysterious tenant of the dismal old place--the man who posed as a poultry-farmer--had had as visitors Dr. Weirmarsh and Enid Orlebar!
For a full half-hour, while the red-faced sergeant kept watch at the gate, Walter Fetherston continued to investigate that rubbish-heap, which showed signs of having been burning quite recently, for most of the scraps of paper were charred at their edges.
The sodden remains of many letters he withdrew and tried to read, but the scraps gave no tangible result, and he was just about to relinquish his search when his eye caught a scrap of bright blue notepaper of a familiar hue. It was half burned, and blurred by the rain, but at the corner he recognised some embossing in dark blue--familiar embossing it was--of part of the address in Hill Street!
The paper was that used habitually by Enid Orlebar, and upon it was a date, two months before, and the single word "over" in her familiar handwriting.
He took his stout walking-stick, in reality a sword-case, and frantically searched for other scraps, but could find none. One tiny portion only had been preserved from the flames--paraffin having been poured over the heap to render it the more inflammable. But that scrap in itself was sufficient proof that Enid had written to the mysterious tenant of The Yews.
"Well," he said at last, approaching the sergeant, "do you think the coast is clear enough?"
"To get a glimpse inside. There's a good deal more mystery here than we imagine, depend upon it!" Walter exclaimed.
"Master and man will return by the same train, I expect, unless they come back in a motor-car. If they come by train they won't be here till well past eight, so we'll have at least three hours by ourselves."