“Oh!” said the crestfallen Alec.
“Sorry to have to score off you in that blatant Sherlockian way,” Roger continued more kindly, “but you did ask for it, you know. No, but seriously, Alec, this is most extraordinarily important. It clears up the last difficulty about murder.”
“But how did he close the window behind him?” asked Alec, still half incredulous.
“Oh! That’s the neatest thing of all. And delightfully simple, although it took me a minute or two to discover it after I’d seen the footprint. Look! You see this handle, the ordinary type for this sort of window. It consists of an arm that fits into the lock and a heavy handle set at right angles to it, the whole moving on a central pivot; the weight of the handle end keeps the other end in position. Well, watch!”
Carefully arranging the handle so that the heavy end was balanced exactly above the pivot, Roger pushed the window sharply back into its frame. Immediately the handle was dislodged by the jar, and, with a little click, the fastener fell into place in its socket, the weight of the falling handle driving it well home.
“Well, I’m dashed!” Alec said.
“Neat, isn’t it?” Roger said proudly. “He stood on the sill outside, you see, and pulled it to behind him, having fixed the handle in position before he got out. I suppose it’s a trick you could play with any lattice window, though I’ve never come across it before.”
“That’s one to you, all right,” said the humbled Alec. “I take back quite a lot of the unkind things I’ve said to you.”
“Oh, don’t trouble to apologise,” Roger said magnanimously. “Though I did warn you that I should turn out to be right in the end, you remember. Well, I don’t think you’ll trouble to dispute the fact of murder any more, will you?”
“Don’t rub it in,” Alec protested. “I did it for the best, like the doctor in the poem. Well, what’s the next move?”
“Let’s go out and have a look at that footprint at close range, shall we?” Roger suggested. “There might be some others, too. Footprints! We are getting professional, aren’t we?”
On a more careful inspection the footprint fully bore out Roger’s contention that it must have been made by a man stepping backward from the sill. The heel end was nearly an inch and a half deep; the toe scarcely half an inch. The edges were slightly blurred where the earth had crumbled, but the mark was clearly that of a large foot.
“At least a ten boot,” Roger said, stooping over it. “Possibly eleven. This may be very useful indeed, Alec.”
“It’s a bit of luck, certainly,” Alec agreed.
Roger straightened up and began to search among the plants near the edge of the bed. After a moment he dropped on his knees on the grass border.
“Look!” he exclaimed excitedly. “Here’s another!”
He parted two little shrubs and peered between them. Alec saw another footprint, not so deep as the last, but quite plainly marked in the dry earth. The toe of this one was also pointing towards the window.
“Same fellow?” he asked, bending over it.
“Yes,” Roger replied, examining the print intently. “The other boot. Let’s see, this is well over a yard from the last one, isn’t it? He must have stepped back on to the path in two big strides.” He rose to his feet and dusted the knees of his trousers. “It’s a pity we can’t track him any farther,” he added disappointedly.
“Can you do anything more with these?” Alec asked with interest.
“I don’t know. We ought to take accurate measurements of them some time, I suppose. Oh, and there’s something else I should very much like to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Get hold of a specimen boot from every male person in the house and grounds and fit them into these prints,” Roger exclaimed, raising his voice slightly in his excitement. “Yes, that’s what we ought to do if we possibly can.”
Alec was pondering.
“But look here, wouldn’t you say that these footprints meant that the fellow was someone outside the house? They show him getting away from the place after Stanworth had been killed, don’t they? If the chap had been someone inside the house, why should he have troubled to get out so elaborately through the window, when all he’d got to do was to walk out by the door? After all the other things he’d done to make it look like suicide, it wouldn’t really be necessary to leave the door locked on the inside, would it?”
“You mean we’re not likely to find a boot in the house to correspond with these prints?”
“Not if the chap were someone from outside, no. What do you think?”
“Oh, yes, I agree. I think in all probability it was someone not belonging to the household. You’re quite right about the existence of these footprints all pointing to that conclusion. But we don’t actually know, do we? And I believe in eliminating all possibilities, however remote. If we can get a chance to try everyone’s boots out and they don’t fit, then we know quite definitely that everybody in this house is free from suspicion of committing the crime itself; though not from suspicion of other things, by the way.”
“What other things?” Alec asked interestedly.
“Being an accessory after the fact. After, certainly; and not improbably before, as well, some of them. It seems to me, Alec,” Roger added pathetically, “that three quarters of this household seem to be accessories after the fact! It isn’t fair.”
“Humph!” said Alec. This was trespassing upon ground which he had no wish to cover. He felt thankful that at any rate Barbara Shannon’s mysterious behaviour had not come to Roger’s ears. What would the latter have said
