For ten minutes nothing happened.  Next, out of a lair not fifteen yards from the distorted dummy, rose a figure that shone white as snow under the moon.  Mark Brendon approached the snare that he himself had set, shook the grass out of his coat, lifted his hat from the ball of leaves it covered, and presently drew on his knickerbockers, having emptied them of their stuffing.  He was cold and calm.  He had learned more than he expected to learn; for that startled exclamation left no doubt at all concerning one of the grave-diggers.  It was Giuseppe Doria who had come to move the body, and there seemed little doubt that Brendon’s would-be murderer was the other.

“‘Corpo di Bacco,’ perhaps, but not corpo di Brendon, my friend,” murmured Mark to himself.  Then he turned northward, traversed some harsh thickets that barred the plateau, and reached a mule track, a mile beneath, which he had discovered before daylight waned.  It led to Menaggio through chestnut woods.

The operations of the detective from the moment that he fell headlong, apparently to rise no more, may be briefly chronicled.

When his enemy drew up and fired pointblank upon him, the bullet passed within an inch of Brendon’s ear and the memory of a similar experience flashed into his mind and led to his subsequent action.

On a previous occasion, having been missed at close quarters, he pretended to be hit and fell apparently lifeless within fifteen yards of a famous malefactor.  The ruse succeeded; the man crept back to triumph over an inveterate foe and Brendon shot him dead as he bent to examine a fancied corpse.  With a loaded revolver still in his opponent’s hand, he could take no risk on this second occasion and fell accordingly.  His purpose was to tempt the red man back and if possible secure his weapon before he had time to fire again.

But he was disappointed, for the unknown, seeing Mark crash headfirst to the ground, and blood run from his mouth, evidently felt assured that his purpose was accomplished.  Brendon had simulated death for a while, but when satisfied of his assailant’s departure, presently rose, with no worse hurts than a bruised face, a badly bitten tongue, and a wounded shin.

The situation thus created he weighed in all its bearings and guessed that those who now believed themselves responsible for his death would take occasion to remove the evidence of their crime without much delay.  The blazed tree, which he presently noted, confirmed this suspicion.  Nobody had ever seen one of Robert Redmayne’s victims and the last was little likely to be an exception.  Mark guessed that until darkness returned he might expect to be undisturbed.  He walked back, therefore, to his starting-place, and found the packet of food which he had brought with him and a flask of red wine left beside it.