You don't think I have any interest in leading you here on a fool's errand, do you ?" "Not at all," he said apologetically.

"Only the whole affair seems so very inconceivable--I mean that the men, having once got rid of the evidence of their crime, would hardly return to the spot and re-obtain possession of it." "Unless they watched me exhume it, and feared the consequences if it fell into your hands," I suggested.
"Of course they might have watched you from behind the trees, and when you had gone they came and carried it away somewhere else," he remarked dubiously; "but even if they did, it must be in this wood.

They would never risk carrying a body very far, and here is surely the best place of concealment in the whole country." "The only thing remaining is to search the wood at daylight," I suggested.

"If the two men came back here during my absence they may still be on the watch in the vicinity." "Most probably they are.

We must take every precaution," he said decisively.