The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK ®. R. Austin Freeman

      “We shall know when we have examined the whole length,” replied Thorndyke, plodding on with his eyes on the ground. “Ha! here is something new,” he added, stopping short and stooping down eagerly—“a man with a thick stick—a smallish man, rather lame. Notice the difference between the two feet, and the peculiar way in which he uses his stick. Yes, Jervis, there is a great deal to interest us in these footprints. Do you notice anything very suggestive about them?”

      “Nothing but what you have mentioned,” I replied. “What do you mean?”

      “Well, first there is the very singular character of the prints themselves, which we will consider presently. You observe that this man came down the path, and at this point turned off into the wood; then he returned from the wood and went up the path again. The imposition of the prints makes that clear. But now look at the two sets of prints, and compare them. Do you notice any difference?”

      “The returning footprints seem more distinct—better impressions.”

      “Yes; they are noticeably deeper. But there is something else.” He produced a spring tape from his pocket, and took half a dozen measurements. “You see,” he said, “the first set of footprints have a stride of twenty-one inches from heel to heel—a short stride; but he is a smallish man, and lame; the returning ones have a stride of only nineteen and a half inches; hence the returning footprints are deeper than the others, and the steps are shorter. What do you make of that?”

      “It would suggest that he was carrying a burden when he returned,” I replied.

      “Yes; and a heavy one, to make that difference in the depth. I think I will get you to go and fetch Willett and the bicycles.”

      I strode off down the path to the entrance, and, taking possession of Thorndyke’s machine, with its precious case of instruments, bade Willett follow with the other two.

      When I returned, my colleague was standing with his hands behind him, gazing with intense preoccupation at the footprints. He looked up sharply as we approached, and called out to us to keep off the path if possible.

      “Stay here with the machines, Willett,” said he. “You and I, Jervis, must go and see where our friend went to when he left the path, and what was the burden that he picked up.”

      We struck off into the wood, where last year’s dead leaves made the footprints almost indistinguishable, and followed the faint double track for a long distance between the dense clumps of bushes. Suddenly my eye caught, beside the double trail, a third row of tracks, smaller in size and closer together. Thorndyke had seen them, too, and already his measuring-tape was in his hand.

      “Eleven and a half inches to the stride,” said he. “That will be the boy, Jervis. But the light is getting weak. We must press on quickly, or we shall lose it.”

      Some fifty yards farther on, the man’s tracks ceased abruptly, but the small ones continued alone; and we followed them as rapidly as we could in the fading light.

      “There can be no reasonable doubt that these are the child’s tracks,” said Thorndyke; “but I should like to find a definite footprint to make the identification absolutely certain.”

      A few seconds later he halted with an exclamation, and stooped on one knee. A little heap of fresh earth from the surface-burrow of a mole had been thrown up over the dead leaves; and fairly planted on it was the clean and sharp impression of a diminutive foot, with a rubber heel showing a central star. Thorndyke drew from his pocket a tiny shoe, and pressed it on the soft earth beside the footprint; and when he raised it the second impression was identical with the first.

      “The boy had two pairs of shoes exactly alike,” he said, “so I borrowed one of the duplicate pair.”

      He turned, and began to retrace his steps rapidly, following our own fresh tracks, and stopping only once to point out the place where the unknown man had picked the child up. When we regained the path we proceeded without delay until we emerged from the wood within a hundred yards of the cottage.

      “I see Mrs. Haldean has been here with Giles,” remarked Thorndyke, as he pushed open the garden-gate. “I wonder if they saw anybody.”

      He advanced to the door, and having first rapped with his knuckles and then kicked at it vigorously, tried the handle.

      “Locked,” he observed, “but I see the key is in the lock, so we can get in if we want to. Let us try the back.”

      The back door was locked, too, but the key had been removed.

      “He came out this way, evidently,” said Thorndyke, “though he went in at the front, as I suppose you noticed. Let us see where he went.”

      The back garden was a small, fenced patch of ground, with an earth path leading down to the back gate. A little way beyond the gate was a small barn or outhouse.

      “We are in luck,” Thorndyke remarked, with a glance at the path. “Yesterday’s rain has cleared away all old footprints, and prepared the surface for new ones. You see there are three sets of excellent impressions—two leading away from the house, and one set towards it. Now, you notice that both of the sets leading from the house are characterized by deep impressions and short steps, while the set leading to the house has lighter impressions and longer steps. The obvious inference is that he went down the path with a heavy burden, came back empty-handed, and went down again—and finally—with another heavy burden. You observe, too, that he walked with his stick on each occasion.”

      By this time we had reached the bottom of the garden. Opening the gate, we followed the tracks towards the outhouse, which stood beside a cart-track; but as we came round the corner we both stopped short and looked at one another. On the soft earth were the very distinct impressions of the tyres of a motor-car leading from the wide door of the outhouse. Finding that the door was unfastened, Thorndyke opened it, and looked in, to satisfy himself that the place was empty. Then he fell to studying the tracks.

      “The course of events is pretty plain,” he observed. “First the fellow brought down his luggage, started the engine, and got the car out—you can see where it stood, both by the little pool of oil, and by the widening and blurring of the wheel-tracks from the vibration of the free engine; then he went back and fetched the boy—carried him pick-a-back, I should say, judging by the depth of the toe-marks in the last set of footprints. That was a tactical mistake. He should have taken the boy straight into the shed.”

      He pointed as he spoke to one of the footprints beside the wheel-tracks, from the toe of which projected a small segment of the print of a little rubber heel.

      We now made our way back to the house, where we found Willett pensively rapping at the front door with a cycle-spanner. Thorndyke took a last glance, with his hand in his pocket, at an open window above, and then, to the coachman’s intense delight, brought forth what looked uncommonly like a small bunch of skeleton keys. One of these he inserted into the keyhole, and as he gave it a turn, the lock clicked, and the door stood open.

      The little sitting-room, which we now entered, was furnished with the barest necessaries. Its centre was occupied by an oilcloth-covered table, on which I observed with surprise a dismembered “Bee” clock (the works of which had been taken apart with a tin-opener that lay beside them) and a box-wood bird-call. At these objects Thorndyke glanced and nodded, as though they fitted into some theory that he had formed; examined carefully the oilcloth around the litter of wheels and pinions, and then proceeded on a tour of inspection round the room, peering inquisitively into the kitchen and store-cupboard.

      “Nothing very distinctive or personal here,” he remarked. “Let us go upstairs.”

      There were three bedrooms on the upper floor, of which two were evidently disused, though the windows were wide open. The third bedroom showed manifest traces of occupation, though it was as bare as the others, for the water still stood in the wash-hand basin, and the bed was unmade. To the latter Thorndyke advanced, and, having turned back the bedclothes, examined the interior attentively, especially at the foot and the pillow. The latter was soiled—not to say grimy—though