“Perfectly,” replied the Greek, taking up and lighting a cigarette. “Wedge-shaped holes, you say?”
“They were the clue for which I sought! I saw it all! The china ape had been used as a stepping-stone! The cunning criminal had thus gained the firm ground in the coppice without leaving a footprint behind!...”
“But, my dear East,” I interrupted, “I cannot follow you. He stepped from beside the body on to the image, which he had placed at a convenient distance?”
“Yes. Then, by means of loops of string—see, they are still attached!—he lifted it forward with his feet——”
“But——”
“Supporting his weight upon two sticks—Sir Jeffrey’s and his own! Hence the wedge-shaped holes beside the track! He had actually reached firm ground when his own stick snapped off short, and he made the fatal error of leaving the fragment and the ferrule, imbedded in the hole! Here is the fragment!”
On the table East laid a fragment of an ebony cane, broken off short some three inches above the nickel ferrule.
“Ebony is so brittle, is it not, Mr. Damopolon?” he said.
“It is indeed,” agreed Damopolon, standing up as though he believed East to have finished.