'That was young Clissold, no doubt.'
'Civil of him to telegraph to me,' said Churchill, and there the subject dropped. The two gentlemen yawned a little. Churchill looked out of the window, and relapsed into thoughtfulness, and so the time went on, and the journey came to an end.
Churchill and the lawyer drove straight to the police station, to inquire if the murderer had been found. There they heard what had befallen Maurice Clissold.
'Absurd!' exclaimed the solicitor. 'No possible motive.'
The official in charge shook his head sagely.
'There appears to have been a quarrel,' he said, in his slow ponderous way, between the two young gents, the night previous. High words was over'eard at the hinn, and on the night of the murder Mr. Cliss'll was absent, which he is unwilling to account for his time.'
Mr. Pergament looked at Churchill, as much as to say, 'This is serious.'
'Young men do not murder each other on account of a few high words,' said Mr. Penwyn. 'I dare say Mr. Clissold will give a satisfactory account of himself when the proper time comes. No one in their right senses could suspect a gentleman of such a crime—a common robbery, with violence, on the high road. In the race week, too, when a place is always running over with ruffians of every kind.'
'I beg your pardon, sir,' said the superintendent, 'but that's the curious part of the case. The footsteps of the murderer have been traced. Mr. Penwyn was shot at from behind a hedge, you see, and the print of the sole looks like the print of a gentleman's boot—narrow, and a small heel; nothing of the clodhopper about it. The ground's a bit of marshy clay just there, and the impression was uncommonly clear.'