"Tell me something," he said in a sharp staccato. "The four other dead men--did any among them have an injured foot--the left or the right, I forget which--from which all toes but the big one had been torn off by a crocodile's bite, so that in life the fellow must have limped a little when he walked? Did any of the dead men bear a mark like that?" "No," said Narkom. "The feet of all the others were normal in every particular." "Hum-m-m! That's a bit of a setback. And I am either on the wrong track or Alvarez is still alive. What's that? Oh, it doesn't matter; a mere fancy of mine, that's all. Now let us get back to our mutton, please. You were going to tell me something about the right hand of the man with the web foot. What was it?" "The palm bore certain curious hieroglyphics traced upon it in bright purple." "Hieroglyphics, eh? That doesn't look quite so promising," said Cleek in a disappointed tone. "It is quite possible that there may be more than one web-footed man in the world, so of course----Hum-m-m! What were these hieroglyphics, Mr. Narkom? Can you describe them?" "I can do better, my dear chap," replied the superintendent, dipping into an inner pocket and bringing forth a brown leather case. "I took an accurate tracing of them from the dead hand this morning, and--there you are. That's what's on his palm, Cleek, close to the base of the forefinger running diagonally across it." Cleek took the slip of tracing paper and carried it to the window, for the twilight was deepening and the room was filling with shadows. In the middle of the thin, transparent sheet was traced this: [Illustration of a handwritten message] He turned it up and down, he held it to the light and studied it for a moment or two in perplexed silence, then of a sudden he faced round, and Narkom could see that his eyes were shining and that the curious one-sided smile, peculiar unto him, was looping up his cheek.