Vance sipped his coffee and inhaled a moment on his cigarette.
“The point I’m trying to bring out is this: there is no proof whatever that all these footprints were not made by someone in the house who first went out and then returned for the express purpose of leading the police to believe that an outsider was guilty. And, on the other hand, there is evidence that the footprints actually did originate in the house; because if an outsider had made them he would have been at no pains to confuse the issue of their origin, since, in any event, they could not have been traced back farther than the street. Therefore, as a tentative starting-point, I assumed that the tracks had, in reality, been made by someone in the house.—I can’t say, of course, whether or not my layman’s logic adds lustre to the gladsome light of jurisprudence—”
“Your reasoning is consistent as far as it goes,” cut in Markham tartly. “But it is hardly complete enough to have led you directly to the linen-closet this morning.”
“True. But there were various contribut’ry factors. For instance, the galoshes which Snitkin found in Chester’s clothes-closet were the exact size of the prints. At first I toyed with the idea that they were the actual instruments of our unknown’s vestigial deception. But when, after they had been taken to Headquarters, another set of similar tracks appeared—to wit, the ones found this morning—I amended my theory slightly, and concluded that Chester had owned two pairs of galoshes—one that had perhaps been discarded but not thrown away. That was why I wanted to wait for Captain Jerym’s report: I was anxious to learn if the new tracks were exactly like the old ones.”
“But even so,” interrupted Markham, “your theory that the footprints emanated from the house strikes me as being erected on pretty weak scaffolding. Were there any other indicants?”
“I was coming to them,” replied Vance reproachfully. “But you will rush me so. Pretend that I’m a lawyer, and my summation will sound positively breathless.”
“I’m more likely to pretend that I’m a presiding judge, and give you sus. per coll.”
“Ah, well.” Vance sighed and continued. “Let us consider the hypothetical intruder’s means of escape after the shooting of Julia and Ada. Sproot came into the upper hall immediately after the shot had been fired in Ada’s room; yet he heard nothing—neither footsteps in the hall nor the front door closing. And, Markham old thing, a person in galoshes going down marble steps in the dark is no midsummer zephyr for silence. In the circumstances Sproot would have been certain to hear him making his escape. Therefore, the explanation that suggested itself to me was that he did not make his escape.”
“And the footprints outside?”
“Were made beforehand by someone walking to the front gate and back.—And that brings me to the night of Chester’s murder. You remember Rex’s tale of hearing a dragging noise in the hall and a door closing about fifteen minutes before the shot was fired, and Ada’s corroboration of the door-shutting part of the story? The noise, please note, was heard after it had stopped snowing—in fact, after the moon had come out. Could the noise not easily have been a person walking in galoshes, or even taking them off, after having returned from making those separated tracks to and from the gate? And might not that closing door have been the door of the linen-closet where the galoshes were being temporarily cached?”
Markham nodded. “Yes, the sounds Rex and Ada heard might be explained that way.”
“And this morning’s business was even plainer. There were footprints on the balcony steps, made between nine o’clock and noon. But neither of the guards saw anyone enter the grounds. Moreover, Sproot waited a few moments in the dining-room after the shot had been fired in Rex’s room; and if anyone had come down the stairs and gone out the front door Sproot would certainly have heard him. It’s true that the murderer might have descended the front stairs as Sproot went up the servants’ stairs. But is that likely? Would he have waited in the upper hall after killing Rex, knowing that someone was likely to step out and discover him? I think not. And anyway, the guards saw no one leave the estate. Ergo, I concluded that no one came down the front stairs after Rex’s death. I assumed again that the footprints had been made at some earlier hour. This time, however, the murderer did not go to the gate and return, for a guard was there who would have seen him; and, furthermore, the front steps and the walk had been swept. So our track-maker, after having donned the galoshes, stepped out of the front door, walked round the corner of the house, mounted the balcony steps, and re-entered the upper hall by way of Ada’s room.”
“I see.” Markham leaned over and knocked the ashes from his cigar. “Therefore, you inferred that the galoshes were still in the house.”
“Exactly. But I’ll admit I didn’t think of the linen-closet at once. First I tried Chester’s room. Then I took a look round Julia’s chamber; and I was about to go up to the servants’ quarters when I recalled Rex’s story of the closing door. I ran my eye over all the second-story doors, and straightway tried the linen-closet—which was, after all, the most likely place for a transient occultation. And lo! there were the galoshes tucked under an old drugget. The murderer had probably hidden them there both times before, pending an opportunity of secreting them more thoroughly.”
“But where could they have been concealed so that our searchers didn’t run across them?”
“As to that, now, I couldn’t say. They may have been taken out of the house altogether.”
There was a silence for several minutes. Then Markham spoke.
“The finding of the galoshes pretty well proves your theory, Vance. But do you realize what confronts us now? If your reasoning is correct,
