“It is clear then,” said Hanaud, rising from his knees. “Someone wearing the slippers of Joyce Whipple ran across this lawn, slipped in the dark on the edge of the flowerbed, planted her left foot full in the mould and sprang across to the grass upon the other side. Yes—but”—and he turned the shoes over in his hand—“it was not in these delicate trifles that she ran. They have walked upon carpets, perhaps upon the terrace, but they did not plunge across the flowerbed last night.”
There was not, as they could all see, a trace of discoloration upon the fine kid or the heels. Not a shred of the mould clung to them. The arches of the insteps were as they came new from the shoemaker, the flat of the soles hardly tinged.
“These are the shoes which were left kicked here and there by Joyce Whipple in her haste last night, when she flung them off and changed her clothes.”
Hanaud turned to Corbie as he spoke and handed him back the three pairs of shoes.
“Run, my friend, and replace these quickly in the places from which we took them. The shoes of Joyce Whipple we will take along with us.”
Hanaud watched Corbie run off upon his errand with more anxiety than his consideration for the feelings of the young châtelaine of Suvlac would seem to justify. Mr. Ricardo began to tremble for her, for he had seen Hanaud at work before, and remembered that he was never so delicate and kind as just before he pounced. Corbie, indeed, had not traversed more than half of the space between the flowerbed and the house, when at last the whirr of a motorcar grew loud and stopped. Hanaud grumbled out an oath under his breath.
“I didn’t want that,” he muttered, and then, raising his voice: “Run, Corbie, run!”
He waited thus in suspense until Corbie vanished into the turret-room. Nor did he take his eyes from the terrace until he saw the gendarme again running towards them from the direction of the avenue.
“Well?” he asked quickly as Corbie reached his side. “Those two have returned then?”
“No,” Corbie returned. “It is that the news of this disaster has spread. It was the car of some neighbours who have come to leave their cards and condolences.”
Hanaud’s attitude relaxed. A great relief lightened his face.
“Good! Moreau, my friend, you shall get your plaster and make some casts of these pretty little footsteps at once. As for that big fellow, we shall see! Corbie, will you continue to run, but this time to the chäis and find for me the gardener. If he is not there he will be working amongst the vines.”
Actually, the gardener, a hulking, big, clumsy fellow with a good-humoured face as red as a ripe apple, was superintending the removal of the grapes from the little carts on to the tray of the press. He came back with Corbie, and Hanaud, who was again upon his knees at the border of the flowerbed, without looking up at the gardener said the most unexpected thing.
“So after all it did rain.”
“Yes, monsieur,” the man answered. “Just what we wanted, a soft gentle fall which lasted steadily for two hours. The year will after all be a good year.”
“That’s admirable,” Hanaud commented in an absent voice. “And at what hour did the rain begin?”
“At midnight, monsieur, or a few minutes afterwards.”
Hanaud looked up alertly.
“You are quite sure? It’s of an importance.”
The gardener laughed.
“Oh, monsieur. I should not be likely to make a mistake. Consider! We each of us have our little patch of vines. Two hours of rain last night would make all the difference in our grapes. Instead of being shrivelled, they would be full. There was not a labourer in this district who slept well last night, I’ll warrant. From midnight until two in the morning. Yes, monsieur, a fine small rain—God’s holy water for the vines.”
The fervent gratitude of the man and the common sense of his argument were convincing.
“Very well, then! It rained from twelve to two. That is clear,” said Hanaud.
“Clear as the night was afterwards, monsieur, clear and dark,” the gardener went on, all in one voice. “And as for the mark of my great boot on the flowerbed which monsieur examines with so much care, it does not bring me within the penal code.”
Hanaud made a grimace at Mr. Ricardo of a very undignified kind.
“So it is your footstep?”
“Yes, monsieur, very sure.”
“Show me!”
The gardener planted his foot in the shallow imprint. It fitted exactly.
“You made it—when?” Hanaud asked.
“Yesterday, monsieur. I should have scraped it over this morning, but for these two or three days the garden must look after itself.”
“Thank you! That’s all.”
“I may go back to the chäis, monsieur?”
“I even invite you to,” said Hanaud, and the gardener went with a clumsy sort of amble. Meanwhile Hanaud grinned maliciously at his friend Ricardo.
“Ahahahaha! What of this fine story of a flight and a pursuit?”
Mr. Ricardo blushed. He was aware that the Commissaire was watching him with an embarrassing inquisitiveness. He lost his head altogether and launched a devastating accusation.
“It was the gardener, then, who pursued Joyce Whipple,” he declared.
“Ah!” cried Hanaud with an exuberant delight as he rose from his knees. “Now we have it then. We gum ourselves to our cannons. Our mysteries are solved. Homage to Mr. Ricardo, the mastermind!” He swept off his broad-brimmed soft black hat and bowed to the ground. “Yes, it was the gardener. Miss Whipple—she runs away after the rain has fallen—for see the deep marks which she makes with her little shoes!—the gardener—he starts after her the day before she runs away—for see the shallower marks his heavy iron-nailed
