“Just what do the shoes have to do with it, Perry?”
“There was mud on the shoes,” Mason said. “Not a great deal of mud, but just enough to show that it had been raining outside, a hard, driving rain which had made not for a thick, sticky mud, but for a thin coating which would have adhered to the soles of the shoes.
“There’s no counterpane on the bed. That means the counterpane was pulled out from under the body after death because it contained some telltale clue — probably the marks left by muddy shoes and wet smears made by a wet topcoat.”
“You figure Tidings was wearing a topcoat at the time?”
“That’s right. I figure that Tidings either drove or was driven up to the bungalow. Someone helped him up the walk to the house, across the living room, and into the bedroom. Tidings stretched out on the bed and was dead within a very few minutes. There were bloodstains on the counterpane, mud on his shoes, and wet smears made by the topcoat.
“Someone took off his shoes, managed to get off the topcoat, and then pulled the counterpane out from under the body… That made rather a bulky bundle. The topcoat was disposed of by putting it back in the bottom of Tidings’ car. Then Tidings’ car was planted where the police would find it sometime the next day, but not where they’d find it before the next day.
“That brings us to the most significant clue of all, Paul, the fact that those bloodstains stop an inch or two beyond the threshold of the house. Remember, it was raining cats and dogs Monday night. That’s a cement porch, and a cement walk. Now I’ll tell you why the bloodstains stop near the door. It’s because the driving rain washed them away, except for those two or three drops which were protected from the rain by that little roof over the front door. That again fixes the time of the murder — Monday night.”
Drake said, “Okay, Perry. You win. That last clue clinches things. Standing by itself, it’s almost enough… All right, he was killed Monday night. Where does that leave us?”
Mason said, “I don’t know.”
“How about going to work on that secretary of Tidings’ and seeing if we can get a confession out of him?”