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(Tuesday, November 30; 2 p. m.)
Markham and Vance and I had a late lunch at the Stuyvesant Club. During the meal the subject of the murder was avoided as if by tacit agreement; but when we sat smoking over our coffee Markham settled back in his chair and surveyed Vance sternly.
“Now,” he said, “I want to hear how you came to find those galoshes in the linen-closet. And, damn it! I don’t want any garrulous evasions or quotations out of Bartlett.”
“I’m quite willing to unburden my soul,” smiled Vance. “It was all so dashed simple. I never put any stock in the burglar theory, and so was able to approach the problem with a virgin mind, as it were.”
He lit a fresh cigarette and poured himself another cup of coffee.
“Perpend, Markham. On the night that Julia and Ada were shot a double set of footprints was found. It had stopped snowing at about eleven o’clock, and the tracks had been made between that hour and midnight, when the Sergeant arrived on the scene. On the night of Chester’s murder there was another set of footprints similar to the others; and they too had been made shortly after the weather had cleared. Here, then, were tracks in the snow, approaching and retreating from the front door, preceding each crime; and both sets had been made after the snow had stopped falling when they would be distinctly visible and determinable. This was not a particularly striking coincidence, but it was sufficiently arresting to create a slight strain on my cortex cerebri. And the strain increased perceptibly this morning when Snitkin reported his discovery of fresh footprints on the balcony steps; for once again the same meteorological conditions had accompanied our culprit’s passion for leaving spoors. I was therefore driven to the irresistible inference, as you learned Solons put it, that the murderer, so careful and calculating about everything else, had deliberately made all these footprints for our special edification. In each instance, d’ ye see, he had chosen the only hour of the day when his tracks would not be obliterated by falling snow or confused with other tracks. . . . Are you there?”
“Go ahead,” said Markham. “I’m listening.”
“To proceed, then. Another coincidence attached to these three sets of footprints. It was impossible, because of the dry, flaky nature of the snow, to determine whether the first set had originated in the house and returned there, or had first approached the house from the street and then retreated. Again, on the night of Chester’s demise, when the snow was damp and susceptible to clear impressions, the same doubt arose. The tracks to and from the house were on opposite sides of the front walks not a single footstep overlapped! Accidental? Perhaps. But not wholly reasonable. A person walking to and from a door along a comparatively narrow pathway would almost certainly have doubled on some of his tracks. And even if he had failed to superimpose any of his footprints, the parallel spoors would have been close together. But these two lines of prints were far apart: each clung to the extreme edge of the walk, as if the person who made them was positively afraid of overlapping. Now, consider the footprints made this morning. There was a single line of them entering the house, but none coming out. We concluded that the murderer had made his escape via the front door and down the neatly swept walk; but this, after all, was only an assumption.”
Vance sipped his coffee and inhaled a moment on his cigarette.
“The point I’m trying to bring out is this: there is no proof whatever that all these footprints were not made by some one in the house who first went out and then returned for the express purpose of leading the police to believe that an outsider was guilty. And, on the other hand, there is evidence that the footprints actually did originate in the house; because if an outsider had made them he would have been at no pains to confuse the issue of their origin, since, in any event, they could not have been traced back farther than the street. Therefore, as a tentative starting-point, I assumed that the tracks had, in reality, been made by some one in the house.—I can’t say, of course, whether or not my layman’s logic adds lustre to the gladsome light of jurisprudence——”
“Your reasoning is consistent as far as it goes,” cut in Markham tartly. “But it is hardly complete enough to have led you directly to the linen-closet this morning.”
“True. But there were various contribut’ry factors. For instance, the galoshes which Snitkin found in Chester’s clothes-closet were the exact size of the prints. At first I toyed with the idea that they were the actual instruments of our unknown’s vestigial deception. But when, after they had been taken to Headquarters, another set of similar tracks appeared—to wit, the ones found this morning—I amended my theory slightly, and concluded that Chester had owned two pairs of galoshes—one that had perhaps been discarded but not thrown away. That was why I wanted to wait for Captain Jerym’s report: I was anxious to learn if the new tracks were exactly like the old ones.”
“But even so,” interrupted Markham, “your theory that the footprints emanated from the house strikes me as being erected on pretty weak scaffolding. Were there any other indicants?”
“I was coming to them,” replied Vance reproachfully. “But you will rush me so. Pretend that I’m a lawyer, and my summation will sound positively breathless.”
“I’m more likely to pretend that I’m a presiding judge, and give you sus. per coll.”
“Ah, well.” Vance sighed and continued. “Let us consider the hypothetical intruder’s means of escape after the shooting of Julia and Ada. Sproot came into the upper hall immediately after the shot had been fired in Ada’s room; yet he heard nothing—neither footsteps in the hall nor the front door closing. And, Markham old thing, a person in galoshes going down marble steps in the dark is no midsummer zephyr for silence. In the circumstances Sproot would have been certain to hear him making his escape. Therefore, the explanation that suggested itself to me was that he did not make his escape.”
“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