Lord Emsworth, now thoroughly bored with the whole affair and desiring nothing more than to be left alone with his weeds and his garden fork, put in his word. Baxter, he felt, was curiously irritating these days. He always seemed to be bobbing up. The Earl of Emsworth was conscious of a strong desire to be free from his secretary's company. He was efficient, yes—invaluable indeed—he did not know what he should do without Baxter; but there was no denying that his company tended after a while to become a trifle tedious. He took a fresh grip on his garden fork and shifted it about in the air as a hint that the interview had lasted long enough.
"It seems to me, my dear fellow," he said, "the only explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is really smeared with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of a few minutes."
"You are very right, your lordship," said Ashe approvingly. "May
I go now, your lordship?"
"Certainly—certainly; by all means."
"Shall I take the shoe with me, your lordship?"
"If you do not want it, Baxter."
The secretary passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Ashe without a word; and the latter, having included both gentlemen in a kindly smile, left the garden.
On returning to the butler's room, Ashe's first act was to remove a shoe from the top of the pile in the basket. He was about to leave the room with it, when the sound of footsteps in the passage outside halted him.
"I do not in the least understand why you wish me to come here, my dear Baxter," said a voice, "and you are completely spoiling my morning, but—"
For a moment Ashe was at a loss. It was a crisis that called for swift action, and it was a little hard to know exactly what to do. It had been his intention to carry the paint-splashed shoe back to his own room, there to clean it at his leisure; but it appeared that his strategic line of retreat was blocked. Plainly, the possibility—nay, the certainty—that Ashe had substituted another shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint on it had occurred to the Efficient Baxter almost directly the former had left the garden.