Eventually he crossed the stream by a bridge, and found his way to a village, from whence he was able to proceed by train to Coalbrookdale. Arriving at the latter place, he went at once to the police, and telling them first of all about the cat, went on to narrate all that had happened to him at the farm. The police were not altogether unsympathetic; they could, however, so they said, do nothing with regard to the cat without corroborative evidence, and, as to the other matter, they were afraid the law did not take cognizance of the superphysical, or suspicion founded on anything so immaterial as ghosts, although they themselves would not like to go as far as to deny their existence altogether. At length, being unable to prevail upon the police to do anything, Casson, by offering a handsome remuneration, persuaded two labourers to accompany him back to the stream. Arriving at the stepping-stones, they cautiously examined the middle one, and found it to be so poised that anyone standing on it would, by its unexpected tilt, suddenly be precipitated into a deep hole directly underneath it. After considerable difficulty the stone was sufficiently moved on one side to enable the workmen to explore this hole, and at the bottom of it the skeletons of two men and a dog were discovered. There was nothing on the one skeleton that could in any way help to identify it; but remnants of clothes, ragged and rotten, still adhered to the other, and from the name engraven on a card-case in the pocket of the coat, which tallied with the initials on the undergarments and a signet ring, there was little doubt but that the remains were those of Ralph Wotherall. [From subsequent inquiries it was ascertained that the friends and relatives of Ralph Wotherall had heard from him immediately prior to the time he was supposed to have left Stepping-Stone Farm, but had not heard from him since, a fact to which they had attributed little importance, as Wotherall, on more than one occasion, had suddenly decided to go abroad, where he had stayed for a couple of years or so without letting anyone know where he was or what he was doing. The story, they said, of his being so hard up as to be unable to pay the rent could be discredited by his solicitors, who would testify to the fact that they had but recently invested a large sum of money for him, from which he was deriving a not inconsiderable income.] A steel collar bearing the initials R. L. W. was found round the neck of the third skeleton, and as several people remembered having seen a big black retriever with Wotherall while he was staying at the farm, it was pretty certain that the canine remains were those of his dog. However, Mrs. Griffiths, who appeared to be quite as astonished as anyone at the discovery of the skeletons, still stuck to her original story that Wotherall had left the neighbourhood, taking his dog with him, and against her statements Casson could only reiterate his surmises.