“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.