But the track on the snow is lost--that is the one fact clear. Give it up and go back?--is that the only course open to us? Not when the chase ends so close to a canal-lock. True, the footsteps do not go to the edge, but only because a wind-swept skirting of brick pavement is clear of snow. The last one is none so far off the stone curb, above the water. Look down into the empty lock, and think!
The parson and the doctor represent intelligent speculation; the policeman, official reserve ready to listen to information and compare it with his pre-omniscience; the gathering crowd of early workmen, the uselessness of defective reasoning powers brought to bear on insoluble problems.
After a moment the parson speaks to the doctor: "The ice is broken over there--just where the water is running in."
"Are you sure?" asks the doctor. "Isn't it only the wash of the water melting it off? But your eyesight is better than mine, I expect."
"No, there's a broken edge. The water-wash would scoop and leave a curve."
"What do _you_ think?" the doctor asks the policeman, who replies briefly: "Gentleman's right, perhaps. Worth trying, anyhow!... Now then, some of you, idling round, I want that bit of ice broke up--against the lower gate. Look alive now!... Yes!--a couple of planks and a short ladder and a yard or so of scaffold-cord. Get 'em anywhere round! I'm answerable. Never you mind what anyone says--just you take 'em!" And the leading casuals, probably labourers on the building job down the lane, are off at a trot to requisition planks and cords. But not without establishing a slight collateral grievance, in the manner of their kind: "You've only got to _name_ what you want, and we'll _get_ it fast enough. Who's to know what you're askin' for, exceptin' you speak?"
Athelstan Taylor's surmise of course was that Uncle Bob had ended his run by falling into the lock at the upper end, where the ice was thin; and, breaking through it, had passed below the thicker ice, where he remained--probably jammed against the lower gate, which was closed. He noticed that this conjecture was at once accepted, but that no living soul of all those present referred to it in words. Silence is kept about it, but for a word between himself and the doctor, even till after the planks and cords and ladder have come, and the planks are laid athwart the sounder ice at the lower gate. One man can stand on them safely without fear of its giving--perhaps two. But one can break the ice with a pick fast enough, as soon as he can get at it. Hand him down a shovel to clear the snow a bit!
