Striking an attitude in imitation of a story book detective, Justice began to address the group. “Gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “we have here a mystery which has baffled the brightest minds in the country, but unraveling it has been the merest child’s play to a great detective like myself. Here are the facts in the case. A man goes down a stairway. The first half of his descent is shrouded in oblivion; half way down he begins to leave bloody footprints. There is only one answer, gentlemen; the one which occurred to me immediately. It is this: Upon reaching the landing the mysterious descender suddenly remembers that it is the day on which he annually trims his toe-nails. Being a very methodical man, as I can detect by the way his feet point when he goes downstairs, he sits down and does it then and there. But the knife slips and he cuts off his toe, after which he makes bloody footprints on the rest of the stairs.”
“Justice Dalrymple, you awful boy!” exclaimed Katherine, and then she laughed with the rest at his absurd explanation of the mystery.
“Well, can you think up any argument that disproves my theory?” he retorted calmly.
“I can,” replied the Captain. “If your theory was correct we’d have found the toe lying on the stairs.”
The girls shrieked and covered their ears with their hands. The Captain chuckled wickedly, but said no more.
“I can think up another argument,” said Sahwah. “Your man went barefoot after he cut his toe off, but this one had his shoe on.”
“So he did!” admitted Justice. “Now you’ve ‘done upsot my whole theory!’”
“But how could his foot bleed through his shoe?” asked Katherine skeptically.
“The sole must have been cut through,” said Justice. “He probably wore a rubber-soled shoe, like a sneaker, and stepped on some broken glass that went right through the sole into his foot. I did the same thing myself once. It bled through, all right.”
“But what did he step on?” asked Nyoda, puzzled. “There isn’t any sign of broken glass around.”