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excuse me …” He took up his bag and scurried toward his car.
    “Well, here we are!” said Oscar Piper. He hefted the oddly weighted hoe as if about to hurl it back into the shrubbery. “It was a swell idea anyway.”
    “Not so fast.” Miss Withers stopped him. “I’ve just had another idea. Do you suppose that we could find one untrampled hoofprint in this vicinity and make a little comparison?”
    The body of Violet Feverel was already being lifted into a wicker basket by two white-clad men from the morgue wagon. Perhaps a dozen feet from where she had lain, outside the trampled circle, the inspector caught sight of a comparatively smooth bit of path which showed the delicate circular mark of a horse’s hoof.
    He lowered the hoe so that the horseshoe fastened to the bottom touched the soft earth. It fitted the print, fitted with a microscopic exactness. “Well, I’ll be—” He turned suddenly and found that Miss Withers was not beside him.
    The squadron of detectives and police had begun to break up, but the angular schoolma’am still lingered over the spot where the dead girl had lain.
    “Never mind looking for the missing cuff link,” called he inspector over his shoulder. “It doesn’t happen nowadays. Come over here, this is really important!”
    Miss Hildegarde Withers did not answer. She took a quick look around to make sure that she was unobserved, and then bent down and hastily drew from the soft mud which still bore the impress of the dead body a warm and pungent-smelling object which she thrust into her handbag.
    One glance had told her that it was a briar tobacco pipe, battered and blackened. As Miss Withers joined her coworker her lips softly formed the words, “People’s Exhibit A” She nodded prophetically.
    1 See The Penguin Pool Murder, 1931.

3
If the Shoe Fits
    “W ITH THIS LITTLE INVENTION a person could produce very credible hoofprints without requiring a horse,” said Miss Hildegarde Withers. She had taken the weighted hoe from the inspector and was tapping gently at the muddy path.
    “All the same time there was a horse,” protested Piper. “You found him yourself, so what difference does it make?”
    “This gadget was not made for fun,” Miss Withers retorted. “And I’ll bet you a bright new penny that the horse in question is going barefoot upon at least one hoof.” She led the way to the spot where, still fretting and prancing, a big red thoroughbred was a prisoner in the grasp of two patrolmen.
    “How does one look at the underneath of a horse’s foot?” Miss Withers demanded. They showed her—and she was immediately confronted with the realization that she had lost her bet. Siwash wore all four shoes.
    “And that is that,” the schoolma’am decided. “By the way, Oscar—we might try a different tack. Have you identified the dead woman?”
    Piper snapped his fingers. “I knew I’d forgotten something!” He turned and shouted toward the scattering detectives. “Boys, what’s new on the identity angle?”
    Sergeant Burke, who had been entrusted with the guardianship of Miss Withers’s dog, ceased his efforts to make Dempsey sit up and beg. “Radio Officer Shay’s been on the phone for half an hour, sir. But he reports most of the stables don’t answer their phones, and the ones he’s reached haven’t sent out any horses this morning.”
    “Well, tell him to keep on trying,” barked the inspector. “We can’t have a murder investigation of an unknown dame.”
    But Miss Withers interrupted again. “We’re only wasting time, Oscar. After all, the horse is supposed to be one of the most intelligent animals. Suppose we let this big red fellow lead us to his stable?”
    “Huh? Will they do that?”
    “They will,” Miss Withers assured him. “In fact, the only time I rode a horse he turned around and galloped into the barn without giving me a chance to dismount. Just let him have his head….”
    “Come on, Burke,” ordered the inspector.