He glanced at his watch, and with a gesture invited them to walk over the sands.
“By the way, though,” he suggested, just as they were moving off, “you might note on your diagram, inspector, the difference between the light and heavy tracks of No. 3's feet. Make the trail of the deep footprints a bit darker.” [see [diagram on page 208]]
The inspector did as he was requested.
“If you start with that assumption,” Wendover pointed out, as they began to move across the sands, “then it ought to lead you to the idea of two camps in the Fordingbridge lot.”
“Who's in your camps?” Sir Clinton asked.
“The claimant, Staveley, and Miss Fordingbridge would be in the one, since Staveley was living at the cottage and Miss Fordingbridge identifies the claimant. The other camp would be Paul Fordingbridge, with Mr. and Mrs. Fleetwood.”
Sir Clinton nodded thoughtfully, and put a further question.
“On that basis, squire, can you find a motive for each of these affairs?”
“I think one might find some,” Wendover contended confidently. “In the first place, Peter Hay had known the claimant very well indeed in the old days. Therefore his evidence would be invaluable to either one side or the other; and whichever side he did not favour might think it worth while to silence him. It was someone well known to Peter Hay who murdered him, if I'm not mistaken. In any case, it was someone in our own class. That was implicit in the facts.”
“It's not beyond possibility, squire. Continue the analysis.”