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pair of grey suede
shoes were brought to him from the hall.
    "See, M. Hanaud, it is a pretty little foot which made those clear
impressions," he said, with a smile; "a foot arched and slender. Mme.
Dauvray's foot is short and square, the maid's broad and flat. Neither
Mme. Dauvray nor Helene Vauquier could have worn these shoes. They were
lying, one here, one there, upon the floor of Celie Harland's room, as
though she had kicked them off in a hurry. They are almost new, you
see. They have been worn once, perhaps, no more, and they fit with
absolute precision into those footmarks, except just at the toe of that
second one."
    Hanaud took the shoes and, kneeling down, placed them one after the
other over the impressions. To Ricardo it was extraordinary how exactly
they covered up the marks and filled the indentations.
    "I should say," said the Commissaire, "that Celie Harland went away
wearing a new pair of shoes made on the very same last as those."
    As those she had left carelessly lying on the floor of her room for the
first person to notice, thought Ricardo! It seemed as if the girl had
gone out of her way to make the weight of evidence against her as heavy
as possible. Yet, after all, it was just through inattention to the
small details, so insignificant at the red moment of crime, so terribly
instructive the next day, that guilt was generally brought home.
    Hanaud rose to his feet and handed the shoes back to the officer.
    "Yes," he said, "so it seems. The shoemaker can help us here. I see the
shoes were made in Aix."
    Besnard looked at the name stamped in gold letters upon the lining of
the shoes.
    "I will have inquiries made," he said.
    Hanaud nodded, took a measure from his pocket and measured the ground
between the window and the first footstep, and between the first
footstep and the other two.
    "How tall is Mlle. Celie?" he asked, and he addressed the question to
Wethermill. It struck Ricardo as one of the strangest details in all
this strange affair that the detective should ask with confidence for
information which might help to bring Celia Harland to the guillotine
from the man who had staked his happiness upon her innocence.
    "About five feet seven," he answered.
    Hanaud replaced his measure in his pocket. He turned with a grave face
to Wethermill.
    "I warned you fairly, didn't I?" he said.
    Wethermill's white face twitched.
    "Yes," he said. "I am not afraid." But there was more of anxiety in his
voice than there had been before.
    Hanaud pointed solemnly to the ground.
    "Read the story those footprints write in the mould there. A young and
active girl of about Mlle. Celie's height, and wearing a new pair of
Mlle. Celie's shoes, springs from that room where the murder was
committed, where the body of the murdered woman lies. She is running.
She is wearing a long gown. At the second step the hem of the gown
catches beneath the point of her shoe. She stumbles. To save herself
from falling she brings up the other foot sharply and stamps the heel
down into the ground. She recovers her balance. She steps on to the
drive. It is true the gravel here is hard and takes no mark, but you
will see that some of the mould which has clung to her shoes has
dropped off. She mounts into the motor-car with the man and the other
woman and drives off—some time between eleven and twelve."
    "Between eleven and twelve? Is that sure?" asked Besnard.
    "Certainly," replied Hanaud. "The gate is open at eleven, and Perrichet
closes it. It is open again at twelve. Therefore the murderers had not
gone before eleven. No; the gate was open for them to go, but they had
not gone. Else why should the gate again be open at midnight?"
    Besnard nodded in assent, and suddenly Perrichet started forward, with
his eyes full of horror.
    "Then, when I first closed the gate," he cried, "and came into the
garden and up to the house they were here—in that room? Oh, my God!"
He stared at the window, with his mouth open.
    "I am afraid, my friend, that is so,"