It was built facing away from the sea like the beach-stone cottages, from which it was separated by a patch of common.
From the rear of the inn the marshes stretched in unbroken monotony to the line of leaping white sea dashing sullenly against the breakwater wall, and ran for miles north and south in a desolate uniformity, still and grey as the sky above, devoid of life except for a few migrant birds feeding in the salt creeks or winging their way seaward in strong, silent flight.

The rays of the afternoon sun, momentarily piercing the thick clouds, fell on the white wall and round glazed windows of the inn, giving it a sinister resemblance to a dead face.
Colwyn brought his car to a standstill on the edge of the saturated strip of common.
"We shall have to walk across," he said.
"Nobody will run off with the car," said Galloway, scrambling down from his seat.
"The murderer brought the body from the back of the house across this green, and carried it up that rise in front of the inn," said Queensmead.

"You cannot see the pit from here, but it is close to that little wood on the summit.

The footprints do not show in the grass, but they are very plain in the clay a little farther on, and lead straight to the pit." "How deep is the pit ?" asked Colwyn.
"About thirty feet.

It was not an easy matter to bring up the body." "We will examine the pit and the footprints later," said Mr.Cromering.
"Let us go inside first." Picking their way across the common to the front of the inn, they encountered a little group of men conversing underneath the rusty old anchor signboard which dangled from a stout stanchion above the front door of the inn.