“Only seaweed,” he said. “Now the murderer did it in my room, you say, I mean he cut the well-nourished boy’s throat there, and then carried it down to the beach. That won’t do. There are only quite a few drops of blood on the way down. If its throat had been cut from ear to ear, there’d be more blood.” “Not at all,” said Frank. “The murderer held the two edges of the wound together—no, he’d want both hands to carry the body—he pinned the edges of the wound together with—with safety pins, so that it only just leaked. He carried it down to the beach like that, and then took out the pins, because he had a saving disposition, and this let the boy bleed to death. As I said, he thought the tide would carry it away, but it didn’t, and it was found there next morning. Lobsters had got at it though, and howked pieces out of it. There’s lobster for dinner to-night. Then the police traced the bloodstains to your bedroom, and found the slop-pail, and you were kept in prison till you were sixteen, and then hung at Norwich.” “And what did he—I—I don’t know which I am, the corpse or the murderer——” “You’re both,” said Frank. “The pins? They were put back in the pin-cushion on your dressing-table, where I saw them just now. There were stains on them that looked like rust. But they weren’t rust, they were——” “They were blood,” said David. “Mammalian.” Frank looked hastily round for more material for horror, and saw a fisherman coming down the steep path just behind them carrying two lobster-pots. This was luck, for David had not seen him, being employed in putting his shoes on. Frank went on without pause. “After that the beach at Naseby,” he said, “was not a place where prudent people cared to be after sunset, especially during the month of August, and particularly on—on August the tenth, which was the exact day when the murder was committed. Prudent people avoided it, for there was no doubt it was haunted. A figure was often seen coming down that steep path just behind us, carrying a ghastly burden.” David looked quickly round with the intention of reassuring himself that there was no one there. That was a dreadful mistake. There was. Frank, after his one glance at the figure, had not looked at the path again. “Good Lord,” said David in a whisper. “There’s something coming down it now. It’s coming straight towards us!” Then he saw more distinctly, and gave a great cackle of laughter. “Oh-oh-oh, it’s only a fisherman with lobster-pots,” he said. “But you did give me such a turn. You said that awfully well. When I looked round and saw that old buffer coming down I could have screamed. I say, do lobsters really eat deaders?” “Whenever they can get them. There are a good many about now, too. The cook told me that the one we’re going to have for dinner to-night had a man’s finger in its claws when they brought it up to the house. The best ones——” “Oh, dry up,” shouted David. “You’ve a foul mind.” Frank laughed. “Oh, you kid!”