Sir Clinton agreed.
“Don't bother taking casts of them yet. We may not need them. Let's go on to the next tracks.”
They had to cut across Billingford's trail and walk to the far end of the rock before they reached their objective.
“This is the other end of the track we noticed before,” Wendover pointed out. “It's the woman in golfing-shoes who came down from the road near the groyne.”
The inspector fell to work on his casting, whilst Sir Clinton took another series of measurements of the length of pace shown by the footprints.
“Twenty-six and a half inches,” he reported, after several trials of comparison. “Now, once the inspector's finished with his impression-taking, we can have a look at the body. We've just done the business in time, for the tide's almost washing the base of the rock now.”
Chapter VII.
The Letter
Followed by Wendover and the inspector, Sir Clinton mounted the platform of Neptune's Seat, which formed an outcrop some twenty yards long and ten in breadth, with the landward part rising sharply so as to form a low natural wall. The body of the murdered man lay on the tiny plateau at the end nearest the groyne. It rested on its back, with the left arm slightly doubled up under the corpse. Blood had been welling from a wound in the breast.
“Anybody claim him?” inquired Sir Clinton. “He isn't one of the hotel guests, at any rate.”
Armadale shook his head.