"H'm.

I thought they looked a bit stout." "I expect," said I, "that if you go through the mud close to where this came from you'll find the rest of the foot." The plain-clothes man proceeded at once to act on my suggestion, taking the sieve with him to save time.

And sure enough, after filling it twice with the mud from the bottom of the pool, the entire skeleton of the foot was brought to light.
"Now you're happy, I suppose," said the inspector when I had checked the bones and found them all present.
"I should be more happy," I replied, "if I knew what you were searching for in this pond.

You weren't looking for the foot, were you ?" "I was looking for anything that I might find," he answered.

"I shall go on searching until we have the whole body.