Found Dead by Fred M. White

Much to the old lady's disappointment, Blake had nothing to tell her. He had no intention of mentioning the matter of the key, because that concerned himself only, and Mrs. Whiddon would have been none the wiser if he had explained to her the meaning of that particular talisman and what might be behind it. With a promise to come again at an early date, he retraced his footsteps and made his way towards Mortmains by the Castle Rock route.

It was the first time be had done so, indeed, the first time it had occurred to him to survey the land adjacent to the tragedy and the prospect interested him. Here was a pathway through the valley that closed in at the top, so that carts and foot passengers had to skirt the great rock that rose like a citadel to the left of Mortmains. The whole road was not more than twenty feet wide and the rugged pathway itself came within two or three feet of the edge of the Castle Rock, which dropped for a sheer two hundred feet onto the soft sands below. It was only at spring tides in March and October that the foot of the Castle Rock was washed by the sea. And now, for the last eight or ten weeks there was nothing down below, above high water mark, but dry sand covered almost with fragile seaweed that had become parched by the sun and wind. One step off the path into the darkness, and certain death would be the result. In his mind's eye, Blake could picture Grimshaw being deliberately pushed off the narrow shelf of rock and being dashed to pieces on the sands below, because he knew that the sands at the foot of the Castle Rock above high water mark were very thin in places and barely served to conceal the scores of jagged flints that lay below the surface.