“A woman’s!” I gasped, for I saw that all my work had been in vain and in my hurry I must have unfortunately overlooked one.
“Yes, it’s the print of a woman’s slipper with a French heel—not the kind of shoe usually worn in Sibberton,” remarked the doctor. “Funny, isn’t it?”
“Very,” I agreed with a sickly feeling. “What do the police think?”
“Redway means to take a plaster cast of it—says it’s an important clue. Got a cigarette?”
I pushed the box before him, with sinking heart, and at the same time invited him to the table to have breakfast, for I had not yet finished.
“Breakfast!” he cried. “Why, I had mine at six, and am almost ready for lunch. I’m an early bird, you know.”
It was true. He had cultivated the habit of early rising by going cub-hunting with the Stanchester hounds, and it was his boast that he never breakfasted later than six either summer or winter.
“Did they find anything else?” I inquired, fearing at the same time to betray any undue curiosity.
“Found a lot of marks of men’s boots, but they might have been ours,” he answered in his bluff way as he lit his cigarette. “My theory is that the mark of the woman’s shoe is a very strong clue. Some woman knows all about it—that’s very certain, and she’s a person who wears thin French shoes, size three.”
“Does Redway say that?”