“These water-weeds,” he observed, “are very remarkable plants in their various ways. Look at this duck-weed, for instance. Just a little green oval disc with a single root hanging down into the water, like a tiny umbrella with a long handle; and yet it is a complete plant, and a flowering plant, too.” He picked a specimen off the end of his stick and held it up by its root to exhibit its umbrella-like form; and as he did so, he looked in my face with an expression that I felt to be somehow significant; but of which I could not extract the meaning. But there was no difficulty in interpreting the expression on the sergeant’s face. He had come here on business and he wanted to “cut the cackle and get to the hosses.” “Well, sergeant,” said Thorndyke, “there isn’t much to see, but I think we ought to have a look for those keys. He must have had keys of some kind, if only a latch-key; and they must be in this ditch.” The sergeant was not enthusiastic. “I’ve no doubt you are right, sir,” said he; “but I don’t see that we should be much forrarder if we found them. However, we may as well have a look, only I can’t stay more than a few minutes. I’ve got my work to do at the station.” “Then,” said Thorndyke, “let us get to work at once. We had better hook out the weed and look it over; and if the keys are not in that, we must try to expose the bottom where the body was lying. You must tell us if we are working in the right place.” With this he began, with the crooked handle of his stick, to rake up the tangle of weed that covered the bottom of the ditch and drag the detached masses ashore, piling them on the bank and carefully looking them through to see if the keys should chance to be entangled in their meshes. In this work I took my part under the sergeant’s direction, raking in load after load of the delicate, stringy weed, on the pale green ribbon-like leaves of which multitudes of the water-snails were creeping; and sorting over each batch in hopeless and fruitless search for the missing keys. In about ten minutes we had removed the entire weedy covering from the bottom of the ditch over an area of from eight to nine feet--the place which, according to the sergeant, the body had occupied; and as the duck-weed had been caught by the tangled masses of water-weed that we had dragged ashore, we now had an uninterrupted view of the cleared space save for the clouds of mud that we had stirred up. “We must give the mud a few minutes to settle,” said Thorndyke. “Yes,” the sergeant agreed, “it will take some time; and as it doesn’t really concern me now that the inquest is over, I think I will get back to the station if you will excuse me.” Thorndyke excused him very willingly, I think, though politely and with many thanks for his help. When he had gone I remarked: “I am inclined to agree with the sergeant. If we find the keys we shan’t be much forrarder.”