"I don't get you," affirmed Bat, a line of doubt across his forehead. "Make it a little plainer, will you?"
"At Stanwick you did not follow me over the ground very closely, except a few times when I specially claimed your attention. Just before I found the revolver under the fence, I saw a second footprint in the sod—a cautious footprint—or perhaps 'toeprint' would be better. It was that of a man, and he had gone tiptoeing lightly around with long steps and in a most erratic manner."
"Why didn't you mention it?" asked Bat Scanlon, somewhat hurt.
"The prints were few; they were also light and dim; and I was not at all sure that they meant anything. However, at the other side of the house I saw them again, but after a few yards I lost them."
"Huh!" said Bat Scanlon.
"But just in the neighborhood of the spot in which they disappeared," continued the investigator, "I noted something else. My lens showed me the impress in the sod of something like a woven fabric. My first thought was that some one had been walking about in his stockings. But a closer inspection told me that the outline was much too rigid for that. And then I realized what had happened. The man who had been tiptoeing so quietly about had stopped at that point and drawn a pair of woolen 'creepers' over his shoes."
"No!" Bat started up in sudden excitement. "That's a good point. It shows that this fellow, whatever else he was, was no amateur. The creeper thing is a regular burglar stunt."
Ashton-Kirk nodded.
"I think you are right," said he. "At any rate it was this gentleman who tried to lift himself up to the window, and in so doing left that interesting little ridge of earth on the cellar grating."
"Yes, of course," said Scanlon. "That would be him, sure."