The Truth of All Things Read Online Free PDF

is visible. Come, Lean, notice on the ground one set of firmer footprints, with scuffling all about. He waited for a long while, grew restless, and shifted his feet around. He was here long enough to smoke four cigarettes at intervals.” Grey bent down and picked up a hand-rolled cigarette butt.
    “There’s only three butts,” Lean noted.
    “Four matches.”
    Grey unwrapped the last bit of the cigarette and held the exposed tobacco to his nose. Lean thought he saw a flash of surprise on Grey’s face. He dropped the material and bent to collect the two remaining butts. He examined each, turning them all around to inspect them from multiple angles.
    “What do you see?” Lean asked.
    “It’s nothing important. He was still smoking the last when something occurred, caused him to move.” Grey dropped one of the cigarettes to the ground as the other disappeared into a jacket pocket. Before Lean could ask another question, Grey turned and moved down the narrow perpendicular alley with his lamp held low to the ground. “He dashed away.”
    Lean picked up the discarded cigarette butt and sniffed it. It had an unusual, acrid scent that was mildly offensive. He slipped it into his shirt pocket, then followed after, pausing wherever Grey had. He too could make out the occasional imprint of a foot. At the end of the short alley, the ground turned to cobblestone.
    “Well, that’s the end of that,” Lean said.
    Grey shook his head and handed his lamp to Lean. “Keep the light abreast of me but stay four feet from the side of the building.”
    Lean followed the instructions as Grey got close to the ground and proceeded, sometimes on hands and knees, his head bobbing and swaying this way and that as he moved along. Lean watched, totally perplexed, but dutifully holding the lamp closer when asked. Grey would pause to examine loose rocks or pluck strands of weeds from the earth, which he would then peer at and sniff. There was something almost wild about Grey’s behavior, and Lean became conscious of the fact that anyone observing them would have thought them both mad.
    “What exactly are you doing?”
    Grey answered without diverting his gaze from the ground. “Our man wishes to conceal himself in the night. It’s human instinct to move along walls. Moving quickly, he’s bound to leave traces. Like so.”
    Lean swung the lamp close and peered at Grey, who reached into the crevice between two cobblestones, his index finger now marked with a dark smudge. Grey gave it a smell.
    “Tobacco ash. The same mix.” He stood and brushed off his knees. “He came along here, as far as the corner, anyway.”
    They continued until they reached the corner, where they had a fine view of the Portland Company’s front courtyard, including the watchman’s shack. In the lit windows, they could plainly make out thewatchman and the patrolman who had first responded to the scene. Grey walked ahead, stopped, stepped aside, and retrieved a half-smoked cigarette from the ground. He smelled it to confirm the contents, examined the external appearance, then slipped it into his pocket.
    “He’s trying not to be seen, yet he heads straight for the watchman?” Lean stared ahead at the outbuilding. “He’s mad.”
    “I suspect not. But the answer is waiting in there,” Grey said as he strode toward the small shack.
    “Tell me, Tibbets, how long has that limp of yours been keeping you from making your regular rounds?” Grey asked.
    “What? Not at all. I make my rounds like I’m supposed to. Every hour.” The stocky, balding watchman shifted about in his seat as his eyes darted back and forth between Grey and Lean, looking futilely for some safe harbor. Lean thought the man appeared drunk; his words were slow and careless.
    “Come now, your limp is pronounced. The night’s damp. Sitting here in your shack only stiffens the joints further. No one is blaming you for this.”
    “I’m paid to go every hour—”
    “Your boss doesn’t need