The butler, who had asked the undertaker's assistants to suspend operations when Robert Fenley arrived, now appeared at the door and signaled the men that they were free to proceed with their work. The detectives strolled into the wood, and soon were bending over some curious blotchy marks which somehow suggested the passage of a pad-footed animal rather than a human being. Bates, of course, would have noted them had he not been on the alert for footprints alone, but they had stared at Winter and Furneaux from the instant their regularity became apparent. They represented a stride considerably shorter than the average length of a man's pace, and were strongly marked when the surface was spongy enough to receive an impression. Except, however, in the slight hollow already described, the ground was so dry that traces of every sort were lost. In the vicinity of the rock, too, the only marks left were the scratches in the moss adhering to the steep sides of the bowlder itself.
"What do you make of 'em, Charles?" inquired Winter, when both had puzzled for some minutes over the uncommon signs.
"Some one has thought out the footprint as a clue pretty thoroughly," said Furneaux. "He not only took care to leave a working model of one set, but was extremely anxious not to provide any data as to his own tootsies, so he fastened a bundle of rags under each boot, and walked like a cat on walnut shells."
Winter nodded.
"When we find the gun, too—it's somewhere in this wood—you'll see that the fingerprints won't help," he replied thoughtfully. "The man who remembered to safeguard his feet would not forget his hands. We're up against a tough proposition, young fellow-me-lad."
"Your way of thinking reminds me of Herbert Spencer's reason for not learning Latin grammar as a youth," grinned Furneaux.
"It would be a pity to spoil one of your high-class jokes; so what was the reason?"
"He refused to accept any statement unaccompanied by proof. The agreement of an adjective with its noun displeased him, because an arbitrary rule merely said it was so."
"An ingenious excuse for not learning a lesson, but I don't see——"
"Consider. Mortimer Fenley was shot dead at nine thirty this morning, and the bullet which killed him came from the neighborhood of the rock above our heads. One shot was fired. It was so certain, so true of aim, that the murderer made sure of hitting him—at a fairly long range, too. How many men were there in Roxton and Easton this morning—was there even one woman?—capable of sighting a rifle with such calm confidence of success? Mind you, Fenley had to be killed dead. No bungling. A severe wound from which he might recover would not meet the case at all. Again, how many rifles are there in the united parishes of Roxton and Easton of the type which fires expanding bullets?"