Mr. Farr met the imperturbable blue eye of his witness with an expression in which irritation and discretion were struggling for supremacy. Discretion triumphed. “Did you discover any tracks on the cottage road?”
“I surely did.”
“Footprints?”
“No; there were some prints, but they were too cut up and blurred to make much out of. What I found were tire tracks.”
“More than one set?”
“There were traces of at least four sets, two of them made by the same car.”
“All equally distinct?”
“No, they varied considerably. The ground in the cottage road is of a distinctly clayey character, which under the proper conditions would act almost as a cast.”
“What would be a proper condition?”
“A damp state following a rainstorm, followed in turn by sufficient fair weather to permit the impression to dry out.”
“Was such a state in existence?”
“In one case—yes. There was a storm between one and three on the afternoon of the nineteenth. We’ll call the tire impressions A, B 1 and 2, and C. A showed only very vague traces of a very broad, massive tire on a heavy car. It was almost obliterated, showing that it must have been there either before or during the downpour.”
“Would those tracks have corresponded to the ones on Mr. Farwell’s car?”
“There were absolutely no distinguishing tire marks left; it could have been Mr. Farwell’s or any other large car. C had come much later, when the ground had had time to dry out considerably. They were the traces of a medium-sized tire on fairly dry ground. They cut across the tracks left by both A and B.”
“Could they have been made by Mr. Conroy’s car?”
“I think that very likely they were. I checked up as well as possible under the conditions, and they corresponded all right.”
“What about the B impressions?”
“Both the B impressions were as sharp and distinct as though they had been made in wax. They were made by the same car; judging from the soil conditions, at an interval of an hour or so. We made a series of tests later to see how long it retained moisture.”
“Of what nature were these impressions, sergeant?”
“They were narrow tires, such as are used on the smaller, lighter cars,” said Sergeant Johnson, a slight tinge of gravity touching the curtness of his unemotional young voice. “Two of the tires—the ones on the front right and rear left wheels had the tread so worn off that it would be risky to hazard a guess as to their manufacture. The ones on the front left and rear right were brand new, and the impressions in both cases were as clear cut as though you’d carved them. The impressions of B 2 were even deeper than B 1, showing that the car must have stood much longer at one time than at another. We experimented with that, too, but the results weren’t definite enough to report on positively.”
“What makes you so clear as to which were B 2?”
“At one spot B 2 was superimposed on B 1 very distinctly.”
“What were the makes of the rear right and left front tires, sergeant?”
“The rear right was a new Ajax tire; the front left was a practically new Silvertown cord.”
“Did they correspond with any of the cars mentioned so far in this case?”
“They corresponded exactly with the tires on Mr. Stephen Bellamy’s car when we inspected it on the afternoon of .”
“No possibility of error?”
“Not a chance,” said Sergeant Johnson, succinctly and gravely.
“Exactly. Had the car been washed at the time you inspected it, Sergeant?”
“No, sir, it had not.”
“Was there mud on the tires?”
“Yes, but as it was of much the same character as the mud in Mr. Bellamy’s own drive, we attached no particular importance to it.”
“Was there any grease on the car?”
“No, sir; we made a very thorough inspection. There was no trace of grease.”
“Did you find anything else of consequence on the premises, sergeant?”
“I picked up a kind of lunch box in the shrubbery outside, and in the dining room, on a chair in the corner, I found a black cape—chiffon, I expect you call it—a black lace scarf and a little black silk bag with a shiny clasp that looked like diamonds.”
“Did you keep a list of the contents of the bag?”
“I did.”
“Have you it with you?”
“I have.”
“Let’s hear it, please?”
“ ‘Contents of black purse found in dining room of Thorne Cottage, ,’ ” read Sergeant Johnson briskly, “ ‘One vanity case, pale green enamel; one lipstick, same; one small green linen handkerchief, marked Mimi; leather frame enclosing snapshot of man in tennis clothes, inscribed “For My Mimi from Steve”; sample of blue chiffon with daisies; gold pencil; two theatre-ticket stubs to Vanities, June eighth; three letters, written on white bond paper, signed Pat.’ ”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Are these the articles found in the dining room, sergeant?”
Sergeant Johnson eyed the contents of the box placed before him somewhat cursorily. “Those are the ones.”
“Just check over the contents of the bag, will you? Nothing missing?”
“Not a thing.”
“I ask to have these marked for identification and offer them in evidence, Your Honour.”
“No objections,” said Mr. Lambert unexpectedly.
Mr. Farr eyed him incredulously for a moment, as though he doubted the evidence of his ears. Then, rather thoughtfully, he produced another object from the inexhaustible maw of his desk and poised it carefully on the ledge under the sergeant’s nose. It was a box—a nice, shiny tin box, painted a cheerful but decorous maroon—the kind of a box that good little boys carry triumphantly to school, bursting with cookies and apples and peanut-butter sandwiches. It had a neat handle and a large, beautiful, early English initial painted on the top.
“Did you recognize this, sergeant?”
“Yes. It’s a lunch box that I picked up back of the shrubbery to the left of the Orchards cottage.”
“Had it anything in it?”
“It was about three-quarters empty. There was a ham sandwich and some salted nuts and dates in it, and a couple of doughnuts.”
“What should you say that the initial
