Here he subjected the window and shutters to the minutest examination, but shutters will not retain any impression from hands that are clean, and he could still find nothing, except the dirty finger-marks on the lintel: these he resolved to have photographed that afternoon. He threw open the window at last, and looked out. It was pleasant there in the sun and he remained in meditation several minutes; then realizing that he was idling, he went out to fit the boot he had taken to the one clear impression in the soil. He bent down to do so when he realized that he had stupidly brought only one boot and that the wrong one. For another minute he looked the soil over to see if amongst its tramplings he could make out a right foot with sufficient clearness, but saw it was hopeless and exclaimed irritably to himself, “I shall have to get the other, that’s all.” “Perhaps I can save you the trouble,” he heard a voice say pleasantly, and straightening his back he looked up and saw Evelyn at the window holding the left boot. “Well, I’m hanged!” he exclaimed. “You will probably wish to fit it yourself,” she said, leaning out; relief at her failures was making her spirits rise above the humiliation of her late thoughts and she spoke almost gaily. “It does fit; I know, because I tried it yesterday.” He was so taken aback by her sudden appearance and her manner that she could not help smiling. “This is the window I always come to first, isn’t it?” she said. “Don’t grudge it me.” “I don’t understand,” he replied slowly. “Do you know whose boots these are?” “Ten years ago they belonged to Mr. John Penterton,” she answered coolly. “And feet don’t change their size much after people grow up,” he added rather slowly. “From which the conclusion is to be drawn——?” she asked. “That two nights ago Mr. Penterton was let in through this window.” “Well? We know that. What of it?” It was obvious that she puzzled him: he remembered too well the way she had been suddenly stricken dumb before this same window the day before, and now she leant out of it, inconsequent, almost gay. He was more than puzzled; he felt a vague misgiving, but he did not care to confess it. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me,” he said with an assumption of the official manner, “why, if you fitted that boot here yesterday, you come here with it again to-day?” “I was making sure,” she answered slowly. “I see; well, perhaps you would let me do the same.” She handed him the boot without a word and watched him fit it carefully to the impression. He raised himself after having done so with an air of subdued triumph in his eyes and felt a renewal of misgiving as he noticed that in hers was only a fairly obvious amusement. “Don’t lean out of that window, please,” he said rather stiffly. “You are very nearly touching the lintel and I have still to take a copy of those finger-marks.” She drew back obediently at once and asked with interest—