“And the footprints outside?”
“Were made beforehand by some one walking to the front gate and back.—And that brings me to the night of Chester’s murder. You remember Rex’s tale of hearing a dragging noise in the hall and a door closing about fifteen minutes before the shot was fired, and Ada’s corroboration of the door-shutting part of the story? The noise, please note, was heard after it had stopped snowing—in fact, after the moon had come out. Could the noise not easily have been a person walking in galoshes, or even taking them off, after having returned from making those separated tracks to and from the gate? And might not that closing door have been the door of the linen-closet where the galoshes were being temporarily cached?”
Markham nodded. “Yes, the sounds Rex and Ada heard might be explained that way.”
“And this morning’s business was even plainer. There were footprints on the balcony steps, made between nine o’clock and noon. But neither of the guards saw any one enter the grounds. Moreover, Sproot waited a few moments in the dining-room after the shot had been fired in Rex’s room; and if any one had come down the stairs and gone out the front door Sproot would certainly have heard him. It’s true that the murderer might have descended the front stairs as Sproot went up the servants’ stairs. But is that likely? Would he have waited in the upper hall after killing Rex, knowing that some one was likely to step out and discover him? I think not. And anyway, the guards saw no one leave the estate. Ergo, I concluded that no one came down the front stairs after Rex’s death. I assumed again that the footprints had been made at some earlier hour. This time, however, the murderer did not go to the gate and return, for a guard was there who would have seen him; and, furthermore, the front steps and the walk had been swept. So our track-maker, after having donned the galoshes, stepped out of the front door, walked round the corner of the house, mounted the balcony steps, and re-entered the upper hall by way of Ada’s room.”
“I see.” Markham leaned over and knocked the ashes from his cigar. “Therefore, you inferred that the galoshes were still in the house.”
“Exactly. But I’ll admit I didn’t think of the linen-closet at once. First I tried Chester’s room. Then I took a look round Julia’s chamber; and I was about to go up to the servants’ quarters when I recalled Rex’s story of the closing door. I ran my eye over all the second-story doors, and straightway tried the linen-closet—which was, after all, the most likely place for a transient occultation. And lo! there were the galoshes tucked under an old drugget. The murderer had probably hidden them there both times before, pending an opportunity of secreting them more thoroughly.”
“But where could they have been concealed so that our searchers didn’t run across them?”
“As to that, now, I couldn’t say. They may have been taken out of the house altogether.”
There was a silence for several minutes. Then Markham spoke.
“The finding of the galoshes pretty well proves your theory, Vance. But do you realize what confronts us now? If your reasoning is correct, the guilty person is some one with whom we’ve been talking this morning. It’s an appalling thought. I’ve gone over in my mind every member of that household; and I simply can’t regard any one of them as a potential mass-murderer.”