He had been flashing the light of his bull's-eye lamp over his surroundings, and he now turned it on a coil of rope which hung from a nail in the boarded wall of the shed, between the door and the window.
"There you are, gentlemen!" he said, lifting the lamp in one hand and pointing triumphantly to a definite point of the coiled cord with the index finger of the other.

"There! Cut clean, too--just like the bit up yonder!" Brereton pressed forward and looked narrowly at what the man was indicating.

There was no doubt that a length of cord had been freshly cut off the coil, and cut, too, with an unusually sharp, keen-bladed knife; the edges of the severance were clean and distinct, the separated strands were fresh and unsoiled.

It was obvious that a piece of that cord had been cut from the rest within a very short time, and the sergeant shook his head gravely as he took the coil down from its nail.
"I don't think there's any need to look round much further, Mr.Bent," he said.

"Of course, I shall take this away with me, and compare it with the shorter piece.