“You're right, sir. There's a very faint mark—far fainter than the ones on the wrists—on the front of each shin, just as you said. It's more like a very faint bruise than a mark made by stumbling against anything. The skin's not broken. Of course it shows up after death, otherwise I'd hardly have seen it.” Sir Clinton nodded without making any comment. He was stooping over the dead man's face, examining it closely. After a moment or two, he signed to Wendover to come to his side. “Smell anything peculiar, squire?” Wendover sniffed sagaciously once or twice; his face lighted up; and then a look of perplexity came over his features. “I know that smell, Clinton. I recognise it well enough; but I can't put a name to it somehow.” “Think again,” the chief constable advised. “Go back to your early days and you'll probably recall it.” Wendover sniffed several times, but remained baffled. A look of interest passed over Sapcote's face. He came forward, bent down, and sniffed in his turn. “I know what it is, sir. It's pear-drops—these sweets the children eat. Peter always had a bag of sweets in the place for youngsters that came to see him.” “That's it,” Wendover exclaimed with some relief. “I knew I hadn't smelt that perfume for ages and ages; and yet it used to be familiar once upon a time.” Sir Clinton seemed to have passed to an earlier line of thought. He turned to the constable. “Peter Hay suffered from apoplexy, the doctor told me. Had he any other troubles? Bad digestion? Asthma? Anything you can think of?” Sapcote shook his head decidedly. “No, sir,” he said without hesitation. “Peter was as sound as a bell, barring these turns of his. I never heard tell of his having anything else wrong with him these last ten years.” The chief constable nodded, as though the information had satisfied him, but he refrained from comment. “I think we'd better get him carried into his own bed now,” he suggested with a glance at the body. “After that, we can look round the place and see if there's anything worth noting.” They carried the remains of Peter Hay into the cottage and laid the body on the bed, which had not been slept in. “You'd better examine him, inspector,” Sir Clinton suggested. As the inspector set to work, the chief constable invited his companions to come into the second room of the cottage; and he left the bedroom door open, so that the inspector could hear anything of interest while he made his examination. To Wendover, the tiny room seemed to offer little of interest. It was obviously kitchen and living-room in one. An oil cooking-stove; a grate; a sink; a dresser; two chairs and a table—these made up the more obvious contents. His eye wandered upwards and was caught by the movement of a tame squirrel in its cage on one of the walls. “I heard he kept some pets,” he remarked to the constable who had gone across to inspect the squirrel with a rather gloomy expression on his face.