And farther there were none!"
"Great poet, Wordsworth," said Lord Peter; "how often I've had that feeling. Now let's see. These footmarks—a man's No. 10 with worn-down heels and a patch on the left inner side—advance from the hard bit of the path which shows no footmarks; they come to the body—here, where that pool of blood is. I say, that's rather odd, don't you think? No? Perhaps not. There are no footmarks under the body? Can't say, it's such a mess. Well, the Unknown gets so far—here's a footmark deeply pressed in. Was he just going to throw Cathcart into the well? He hears a sound; he starts; he turns; he runs on tiptoe—into the shrubbery, by Jove!"
"Yes," said Parker, "and the tracks come out on one of the grass paths in the wood, and there's an end of them."
"H'm! Well, we'll follow them later. Now where did they come from?"
Together the two friends followed the path away from the house. The gravel, except for the little patch before the conservatory, was old and hard, and afforded but little trace, particularly as the last few days had been rainy. Parker, however, was able to assure Wimsey that there had been definite traces of dragging and bloodstains.
"What sort of bloodstains? Smears?"
"Yes, smears mostly. There were pebbles displaced, too, all the way—and now here is something odd."
It was the clear impression of the palm of a man's hand heavily pressed into the earth of a herbaceous border, the fingers pointing towards the house. On the path the gravel had been scraped up in two long furrows. There was blood on the grass border between the path and the bed, and the edge of the grass was broken and trampled.
"I don't like that," said Lord Peter.
"Ugly, isn't it?" agreed Parker.