“It might have been young Torrance, of course,” Sir Clinton admitted. “He might have doubled his own part with that of the murderer. I kept an open mind.”
“I suppose it might have been Miss Forrest, if you take everyone into account,” Ardsley commented.
“I didn’t speculate much at the time,” Sir Clinton answered. “What really started me thinking definitely was the clue that my dog gave us. He led us, you remember, by a very winding track through the Maze—evidently the turnings and windings were due to the murderer dodging someone in the alleys. Then we came near the river—that suggested that he flung away his air-gun into the water as he passed. Then the dog led us to a tree in a small clump near by. Wendover noticed a mark on the trunk of the tree, about three feet off the ground, and he suggested that it had been made by the boot of the murderer while he was trying to climb the tree. But after that the trail went on and reached the road—and there it stopped dead. The dog simply baulked there; it found nothing further.”
Sir Clinton paused for a moment to let this point sink in.
“A trail can only stop dead in that way for either of two reasons. First, a man may stand still and wait. But since the man wasn’t there he obviously hadn’t waited. The only other way in which a thing like that could happen is by the man getting into the air off the road at that point.”
“Ha! The private aeroplane, I suppose,” said Wendover sarcastically.
Sir Clinton’s retort crushed the Squire slightly.
“Or the private motor—or even the humble push-bike. If you step into a car or get on to a bicycle your trail will stop so far as footsteps are concerned.”
Wendover admitted the hit.
“What an ass I was not to see that at once. And of course the road was bone-hard and had no dust on it, so he left no track of his tyres?”