The conditions were favourable to an undisturbed search, for Barnes Common was unusually free from traffic. One motor bus lumbered past, a homeward-bound limousine from town was succeeded by another, and if the chauffeurs were interested in the spectacle of a man kneeling by what looked like a heap of rags on the sidewalk, the occupants of the cars did not apparently share their curiosity. She paced the trail, judged it to be between twelve and thirteen feet from the place where the body was found. On the other side of the footpath was rough, common land: grass and bushes in irregular patches. She began to search the ground; and here she had an unusual reward, for, passing round a thick, low bush, she saw, lying together on the grass, a number of objects. The first was a flat pocketbook that had been opened and its contents pulled out, for round about was a litter of papers, which she collected quickly. Fortunately, it was a still night, and there was no wind to carry them away. The second package was a brown envelope, and she made a brief examination. There was a steamship ticket issued to “Anthony Druze, First Class Saloon, Southampton to New York.” In this envelope was a new passport. The third object was also a pocketbook--brand-new--the perfume of the Russian-leather cover told her that. This also had been opened in such a hurry that the strap about it had been broken. It was stuffed tight with thousand-dollar notes. She collected the three packages and sought for more, but there was none. And then she took stock of the place where she had found them. It was immediately behind a big bush which effectively screened all view of the road. She put her lamp close to the ground and moved it slowly. Here was a curiously mottled patch of grass; in some places it was gray with frost, in others wet and crushed. The ground was too hard for footprints, but without their aid she could reconstruct all that had happened here less than an hour ago. Somebody had come behind this brush to examine the contents of the pockets; the papers had been taken out one by one, examined and thrown away, and the object had not been robbery. The tightly filled pocketbook proved that. It could not have been a chance thief who came upon the body; no honest person would have made this search. It had been somebody looking for a definite thing. She went back to Coldwell with her discoveries just as the police car came flying over the railway bridge, followed by a motor ambulance. She told Coldwell hurriedly what she had found, and he was not surprised. “I’ve been searching his pockets; most of them are inside out,” he said. And then, abruptly: “Where is Peter Dawlish?” She stared at him open-mouthed. “Peter Dawlish? What has he got to do----” And then she remembered Peter’s threat, and saw that it was inevitable that suspicion should attach to him.