And they did see. They had now arrived at the house, which looked deserted enough in all conscience. The front door was wide open, as if left carelessly by fleeing inhabitants. Yet, when they cautiously proceeded into the house itself it showed every sign of recent occupation. On the table in the little breakfast-room off the roomy kitchen a meal was laid on the table. An egg had been eaten, its shell in an egg-cup remaining on the table. Shelley went over to the table and grasped the metal coffee-pot which rested on a cork mat on the polished oak table.

“We’re mighty close on their trail, Cunningham,” he said with a satisfied grin.

“How do you know?” asked Cunningham.

“Feel this coffee-pot.”

Cunningham touched it gingerly, and then whistled. “Hot!” he exclaimed.

“Yes; we’ve missed them by about ten minutes at the most,” said Shelley.

They hurried upstairs and looked around the various rooms of the house. Few showed any signs of recent habitation, but there was, as Cunningham had suggested, a telescope in one of the bedrooms. It was facing a window, and Shelley applied his eye to its lens. Then he too whistled, a shrill, almost uncanny note.

“Cunningham,” he said, “I think I shall have to suggest that you get some promotion.”

“Why? Was I right?”

“You were. Dead right. This telescope is turned to face that spot on the hill that you spoke about. It is focussed exactly for the spot. Quick! We must look around the other rooms, and then be off after them.”

In a bedroom, however, they found something that detained them for a moment. Henry Fairhurst, who had been strangely quiet for some time, pounced on a handbag which was lying on the floor.

“That’s Miss Arnell’s!” he shouted with some excitement.

Shelley picked it up, opened it, and glanced at its muddled contents.

“Quite right, Mr. Fairhurst,” he admitted. “Well, that clinches the whole affair. Mr. Wallace has Miss Arnell here in Yorkshire. And they can’t be very far away, judging by the heat of the coffee in the pot on the breakfast-table downstairs.”

“How are you going to catch them?” asked Henry.

“Watch me and see,” answered Shelley. He ran down the stairs, the others following him helter-skelter.

Out of the front door Shelley ran; Cunningham, who was a burly man, puffed in his wake, and the others straggled along in the rear.

Shelley paused in front of the house, anxiously scanning the gravel, which was loosely thrown on the little private road which led from the main road up to the house itself, and up which they had driven a mere few minutes earlier.

“Ah!” he exclaimed at length. “Here we are. See, Cunningham?”

Henry Fairhurst peered at the two detectives, as they looked at the ground.

“Yes,” said Cunningham. “An old Dunlop with a patch. That should be easy enough to follow.”