The other was larger and broader, with spreading soles and wide heels, generally known as common-sense heels.
Crouching to carefully inspect all of these impressions,[Pg 14] Nick made other discoveries, from which he drew several important deductions.
“By Jove, this is still more curious,” he remarked, after a moment.
“What’s that, chief?” questioned Patsy, bending nearer.
“Two women have recently been here, instead of only one. The location of some of the tracks indicate that they came to spy through the library window and play the eavesdropper. It must have been in the evening, therefore, for they would have been seen in daylight.”
“Surely.”
“Here are several bruised blades of grass broken off by them and trodden into the soil,” Nick added, picking up a couple of them. “They are too dry and wilted for it to have occurred as recently as last evening, yet they are fresh and green enough to show that it could not have been much longer ago. We can safely say night before last.”
“The evening when the veiled woman visited Maybrick.”
“Exactly.”
“Gee! you must be right, chief, though it’s fine figuring.”