The house stood some distance from the road in a grove of elm trees. A handsomely kept lawn swept down to the iron fence which shut in the grounds. It was a fine old mansion, with many gables, porches, and odd corners. The dull red walls were overrun with English ivy.
The detectives ascended at once to the upper floor. The stairs brought them to a long hallway running just west of the tier of rooms at the front of the house.
Entering the front room, they found the body of the dead man lying on the bed. Nick at once bent over it. His impression was that it had been placed on the bed after the deathblow had been struck, but the coroner had gone away for a time, and he could ask no questions of him.
“It is worth looking up,” thought Nick.
As the detectives were beginning their work, Sheriff Walton called out to them from the lower hallway:
“I am going away for a time,” he said, “but I’ll be back. Two suspicious men took a rig from a local stable last night, and have not returned it. I think that perhaps they are the men who were here. You will find that the burglars gained entrance by way of the west room, and passed on to the front of the house. On the way they got the diamonds from the trunk in Charley’s room.”
Nick smiled as the sheriff closed the door and took his departure.
“He seems to have solved the case already,” said Chick. “I presume he has the murderer in sight now. Good luck to him, say I.”
“Here’s something to begin on,” continued Chick, pointing to footprints in the hallway. “See! There’s been a good deal of travel about here, and in bare feet. I don’t quite understand this, chief. I can’t see what it means. We have been told that Mrs. Maynard and Anton lay unconscious until morning, so I don’t see who did all this walking about. I don’t believe people came up here barefooted.”
The prints of naked feet led from door to door, and in some places were quite numerous. They passed from the north room to the south room, back again, and from the east room to the north room and back again. The south room was occupied by the owner of the diamonds, the north room by his aunt, and the east room by Alvin Maynard, who lay dead there at the time of the visit.