It occurred to him that the spectacle of a house master wandering abroad on the public highway, carrying a dirty shoe, might be a trifle undignified. You never knew whom you might meet on Sunday afternoon. Psmith took the shoe, and doing so, understood what before had puzzled him. Across the toe of the shoe was a broad splash of red paint. He knew nothing, of course, of the upset tin in the bicycle shed; but when a housemaster's dog has been painted red in the night, and when, on the following day, the housemaster goes about in search of a paint splashed shoe, one puts two and two together. Psmith looked at the name inside the shoe. It was "Brown bootmaker, Bridgnorth." Bridgnorth was only a few miles from his own home and Mike's. Undoubtedly it was Mike's shoe. "Can you tell me whose shoe that is?" asked Mr. Downing. Psmith looked at it again. "No, sir. I can't say the little chap's familiar to me." "Come with me, then." Mr. Downing left the room. After a moment Psmith followed him. The headmaster was in his garden. Thither Mr. Downing made his way, the shoe-bearing Psmith in close attendance. The Head listened to the amateur detective's statement with interest. "Indeed?" he said, when Mr. Downing had finished, "Indeed? Dear me! It certainly seems ... It is a curiously well-connected thread of evidence. You are certain that there was red paint on this shoe you discovered in Mr. Outwood's house?" "I have it with me. I brought it on purpose to show to you. Smith!" "Sir?" "You have the shoe?" "Ah," said the headmaster, putting on a pair of pince-nez, "now let me look at--This, you say, is the--? Just so. Just so. Just ... But, er, Mr. Downing, it may be that I have not examined this shoe with sufficient care, but--Can _you_ point out to me exactly where this paint is that you speak of?" Mr. Downing stood staring at the shoe with a wild, fixed stare. Of any suspicion of paint, red or otherwise, it was absolutely and entirely innocent. 21 THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE The shoe became the center of attention, the cynosure of all eyes. Mr. Downing fixed it with the piercing stare of one who feels that his brain is tottering. The headmaster looked at it with a mildly puzzled expression. Psmith, putting up his eyeglass, gazed at it with a sort of affectionate interest, as if he were waiting for it to do a trick of some kind. Mr. Downing was the first to break the silence. "There was paint on this shoe," he said vehemently. "I tell you there was a splash of red paint across the toe. Smith will bear me out in this. Smith, you saw the paint on this shoe?" "Paint, sir?" "What! Do you mean to tell me that you did _not_ see it?" "No, sir. There was no paint on this shoe." "This is foolery. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash right across the toe." The headmaster interposed.