They were Mabel’s. Scarcely knowing why I did so, I took them up and glanced at them. They were very muddy, and, strangely enough, some blades of grass were embedded in the mud. Then terrible thoughts occurred to me.
I recollected Mabel’s long absence, and remembered that one does not get grass on one’s shoes in Kensington.
The shoes were of French make, stamped with the name of “Pinet.” They were thin-soled, and the high Louis XV heels were slightly worn on one side.
Breathlessly I took them to the window, and, in the grey light, examined them scrupulously. They coincided exactly with the pair the detectives were searching for, the wearer of which they declared was the person who stabbed George Travers to the heart!
The dried clay and the blades of grass were positive proof that Mabel had walked somewhere besides on London pavements.
Could she really have murdered her brother? A terrible suspicion entered my soul, although I strove to resist it, endeavouring to bring myself to believe that such a thought was absolutely absurd; but at length, fearing detection, I found a brush and removed the mud with my own hands.
Then I walked through the flat and entered the room where Mabel was soundly sleeping. At the foot of the bed something white had fallen. Picking it up, I discovered it was a handkerchief.
A second later it fell from my nerveless grasp. It had dark, stiff patches upon it—the ugly stains of blood!
The one thought that took possession of me was of Mabel’s guilt. Yet she gave me no cause for further suspicion, except, indeed, that she eagerly read all the details as “written up” in those evening papers that revel in sensation.