'Then did it not occur to you that if such were the case, the silver pitcher would not have been empty, and, besides the broken dishes, there would have been the rolls, butter, toast, or what not, strewn about the floor?'
The chief constable opened his eyes.
'There was no one else for him to bring breakfast to,' he objected.
'That is where you are very much mistaken. Bring me the boots the butler wore.'
'He did not wear boots, sir. He wore a pair of cloth slippers.'
'Do you know where they are?'
'Yes; they are in the boot closet.'
'Very well, bring them out, examine their soles, and sticking in one of them you will find a short sliver of pointed oak.'
The constable, looking slightly more stupefied than ever, brought the slippers, and I heard him ejaculate: 'Well, I'm blowed!' as he approached me. He handed me the slippers soles upward, and there, as I have stated, was the fragment of oak, which I pulled out.
'Now, if you take this piece of oak to the top of the stair, you will see that it fits exactly a slight interstice at the edge of one of the planks. It is as well to keep one's eyes open, constable, when investigating a case like this.'