He swivelled round and lowered one foot gently into the lines of the impression.
"I must beg of you, Morley" said the bishop, "not to-damage that print. If you will step aside…?" I have made quite a study of footprints, gentlemen. Hugh! Come here and let me have your assistance in examining this. We are fortunate. Clay, doctor, is by far the most accurate substance for recording an impression. Sand and snow, contrary to the popular impression, are almost valueless, as Dr. Hans Gross points out. The forward impulse of the foot in sand, for example, will lengthen the print anywhere from half an inch to two inches out of its natural dimension. As to breadth — stand aside, please, Morley." He looked round with a tight smile. "We shall certainly have an interesting exhibit to show Inspector Murch when he returns."
"Oh, Murch found it," said Standish, breaking off his effort to lower his shoe gingerly into the print. "He found it right enough. He and Hank Morgan got some plaster-of-Paris and made a cast of it. I knew they'd found a print, but I didn't even go to look at it until this afternoon."
"Oh, ah," said the bishop. He stopped, and rubbed his mouth. "Indeed! That was more of young Morgan's work, I dare say. Unfortunate. Most unfortunate." Morley stared.
"You're jolly well right it's unfortunate!" he agreed, his voice booming out with sudden nervousness and annoyance. "Look here. It fits. I'm the only person hereabouts with a shoe as large as that. Not only that, but I can even identify the pair of shoes… I’ll swear I wasn't mucking about here last night, but you can see for yourself that's a fairly fresh print. I wonder if Murch is thinking—?"
Dr. Fell's voice struck in so quietly and easily that Standish paused. The doctor had lumbered over to blink at the impression in his vague, nearsighted way.
"How can you identify the shoes?" he inquired.
"By the marks on the heel. It's a pair I chucked away… To understand that," explained Standish, pushing back his hat, "you'd have to know my mother. She's one of the best, mother is, but she gets notions. She is afflicted by the power of suggestion. The moment she hears of a new food over the wireless, we get it till we choke. If she hears of a new medicine for any ailment whatever, she becomes convinced that everybody in the house has got the ailment, and doses us all silly. Well," said Morley, with brooding resignation, "not very long ago she read a spirited article in a magazine about, Why submit to the tyranny of the cobbler? It proved what a difference you could make to your household budget if you bought rubber heels at cost and tacked 'em on your own shoes when the old heels wore out. It impressed her so much that she sent to town for great quantities of rubber heels; thousands of rubber heels; God knows how many rubber heels. I never knew there were so many rubber heels in the world. The house was swamped in 'em. They turned up everywhere. You couldn't even open the medicine chest in the bathroom without getting a shower of rubber heels. But worst of it was that you were supposed to nail 'em on yourself — that was a part of the diabolical design, to teach the British household a useful art. The result was—"
"Kindly come to the point, Morley," said the bishop; "I was about to go on explaining—"
The result was," went on Morley, embarked on a grievance, "that you either soaked the nail clear through the shoe so that you couldn't walk on it, or put it in so loose that the heel would come off just as you started downstairs. I never heard my governor use such language before or since. Finally we rebelled. I told Kennings to take the only pair I’d mutilated and throw it away… And that's it" he declared, pointing to the print. "I'd know it anywhere; the heel was too large for the shoe anyhow. All I'm sure of is that somebody is using them. But why?"