“Roger!” Margaret cried. “Do explain! I don’t know what it is, except an old shoe. What is it?”
“It’s one of the shoes worn by the murderer to disguise his foot-prints, precisely as I said,” Roger explained, with a not unjustified triumph. “Don’t you see why the leather’s cut like this? To enable the shoe to be crammed on to a foot several sizes too large for it. He had the pair all ready with him, made use of them, and then threw them down into the sea.”
“Jolly good, Roger!” Anthony exclaimed, smiting his cousin on the back in his exuberance. “Then you were right when you said the murderer was a man.”
“I was, Anthony; and this clinches it once and for all. No woman would want to make a shoe this size still larger to fit her foot. I shall have to hare off and see the inspector about this. In the meantime, you shin down again and hunt among those rocks for the second one; it’s bound to be somewhere about. Children, this is the biggest thing that’s happened since I took up the case!”
Chapter XVI.
Inspector Moresby Intervenes
“The biggest thing that’s happened since you took up the case, is it, sir?” said a voice behind them. “Well, well, that’s interesting. May I have a look at that shoe?”
They wheeled round, startled. Then Anthony glared, Margaret stiffened and Roger grinned.
“Hullo, Inspector!” cried the last. “Where in the world did you spring from?”
“The cave, sir,” the inspector replied, a little twinkle in his blue eyes, as he possessed himself of the shoe. “Though not so much sprung as crawled.” He turned the shoe over in his hand, examining it with professional intentness.
“Find anything interesting in the cave, by the way?” Roger asked airily.