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tacks holding down the insole of Ainsworth’s left shoe had been rooted up, and the folded paper inserted beneath; the insole had then been pressed back into place.
    “So that,” said Sir Gerald heavily, “is that.” And he went into the adjoining room to fetch Jane. Fen, however, remained with Ainsworth; and after a little reflection said:
    “Ainsworth, just when did you hide this drawing in the shoe?”
    The young man looked up briefly, and Fen was interested to note that he hesitated perceptibly before replying. “If you must know,” he said, “I had it under my shirt to start with, and then put it into the shoe in my cell during the night. Any more questions?”
    Fen considered. “Yes, two, I think. And here’s the first of them. Is Jane McComas fond of her father, would you say?’
    Ainsworth seemed momentarily bewildered by this. “Not really very fond, no,’ he said. “But—”
    ‘Thanks. And the other thing I want to know is whether, from start to finish, there was any occasion apart from your… your pernoctation in the cell when the drawing could have been transferred to the shoe.” Fen waited. ‘Well? Was there?”
    After a bursting pause: “No,” said Ainsworth expressionlessly. “No. As a matter of fact there wasn’t.”
    “You realize I can check that statement?”
    And suddenly, Ainsworth smiled, and in an altered tone said:
    “All right then, go ahead.” It was as though a great weight had been lifted from him. “Go ahead and check it. Only… only don’t do anything too drastic about the result, will you? I mean, if we could just talk it over…”
    “We will,” Fen assured him; end with that left the building and took a cab to New Scotland Yard, where, through the good offices of his friend Detective Inspector Humbleby, he was able in due course to confirm what he had suspected; that in fact there had been no other occasion when Ainsworth could possibly have put the portrait into the shoe…
     
    “You’re an ass, though,” he told Ainsworth that evening in the bar where they had arranged to meet. “A chivalrous ass, of course, but still an ass.”
    “Chivalrous?” Ainsworth shook his head. “Hardly that. The point was that although I never much liked the old boy, I had to give him credit for being fond of his daughter; and it would have pretty well shattered him to find out what she’s done… You haven’t told him, have you?”
    “Not my business,” said Fen, “but am I to take it that you’re proposing to let Sir Gerald go on imagining you’re guilty? I don’t myself see the slightest reason why you should.”
    “There is a reason, though.” Ainsworth spoke very soberly. “I was carrying on with another girl, you see, while I was still engaged to Jane. Not nice—I owe them something for that. Of course, I was intending to break off the engagement; but when Jane did eventually find out about the other girl, the fat really was in the fire.
    “In those circumstances, merely breaking with me must have seemed to her to be a most inadequate punishment; so she worked out a clever little plan to try to ruin me professionally as well, by making me out to be a thief…”
    “But how did you know it was the girl who was trying to frame you, rather than the father?”
    “Ah, well, you see, it was her, not him, that I saw coming out of my bedroom yesterday afternoon with one of those little tools you use for prising up tacks. She didn’t know I’d seen her-and naturally I myself thought nothing of it, gt the time. It was only when the drawing turned up in my shoe that I put two and two together and decided on my self-sacrificing act.”
    Ainsworth grinned. “Thank the Lord you were around to puncture it… Incidentally, why do they take one’s shoes away when they lock one up?”
    “It’s really only the laces,” Fen explained, “that they’re supposed to take; the idea is that if the laces are left with you you may upset the routine by deciding to hang