“I think I’ll tarry a bit and hear what the Captain has to say regarding those footprints. Y’ know, Markham, I’ve been evolving a rather fantastic theory about ’em; and I want to test it.”
Markham looked at him a moment with questioning curiosity. Then he glanced at his watch.
“I’ll wait with you,” he said.
Ten minutes later Doctor Doremus came down, and paused long enough on his way out to tell us that Rex had been shot with a .32 revolver held at a distance of about a foot from the forehead, the bullet having entered directly from the front and embedded itself, in all probability, in the midbrain.
A quarter of an hour after Doremus had gone Heath re-entered the drawing-room. He expressed uneasy surprise at seeing us still there.
“Mr. Vance wanted to hear Jerym’s report,” Markham explained.
“The Captain’ll be through any minute now.” The Sergeant sank into a chair. “He’s checking Snitkin’s measurements. He couldn’t make much of the tracks on the carpet, though.”
“And finger-prints?” asked Markham.
“Nothing yet.”
“And there won’t be,” added Vance. “There wouldn’t be footprints if they weren’t deliberately intended for us.”