He tripped over something and came heavily to the ground. A heart-felt oath reached their ears. “I’m wet all down the front, now,” Ernest wailed. “I fell over some damned thing or other and I’ve hurt my toe. I hope it hasn’t split the nail. What _is_ this thing, damn it?” He seemed to be feeling about in the dark. “Why! It’s the air-gun!” Sir Clinton’s flash-lamp suddenly shot out its glare; and in the cone of illumination they saw the grotesque figure of Ernest kneeling on the ground with the air-gun clutched in his hand. He rose to his feet laboriously. “I’m soaking with that dew. Very heavy it’s been to-night. Wasn’t it a godsend that I had a spot of whisky just before coming out? That’ll keep a cold away. I’ll have another one—a whisky hot—when I get back again.” Sir Clinton paid no attention to Ernest’s babble. He took the air-gun gingerly from its discoverer’s hand and held it out to Arthur in the glare of the flashlamp. “One of the local armoury, I suppose?” Arthur examined it for a moment. “Yes, that’s one of ours.” The honours of discovery, however, seemed destined to fall to Ernest. “Here,” he demanded, “turn that light over this way, will you? There’s something round my foot.” They could hear him kicking in the obscurity. Sir Clinton swung the beam round and stooped down. “It’s a bit of black thread you’ve got tangled up in. Wait a jiffy.” He freed Ernest from the fibre and began to trace along the thread with his light. It seemed to be merely the end of a long tentacle extending out from the entrance to the Maze. “Ariadne’s clue!” exclaimed Wendover, when he saw the direction in which the filament lay. Sir Clinton nodded briefly. “You people had better get back to the car,” he said. “I don’t want the ground trampled here. We can look at it in the morning. I’m just going to follow up this thread. I’ll be back in a minute or two.” Holding his light low, he disappeared into the intricacies of the Maze, while Wendover shepherded the others back to the car. Once round a corner or two and well out of sight of the rest, Sir Clinton ceased to trouble about the thread and made his way direct to one centre of the Maze. He sought about for a time, evidently fruitlessly; and then made his way to the other centre. Here his search was more successful. Among some bushes in the enclosure, he unearthed a suit-case. “Well, _that_ was a long shot,” he admitted to himself, though with evident satisfaction. “He’s evidently not too sure that he’s taken me in with his soft sawder, and he’s provided for contingencies. Let’s see.” He opened the suit-case and scrutinised one or two of the garments in it. “Complete change of clothes and no marking on so much as a handkerchief. Quite right!” He re-closed the suit-case and put it back into the hiding-place in which he had found it. Then he retraced his steps in the Maze until he came to the black thread which he proceeded to follow to the end.