“Then it's reasonable to look to the Foxhills affairs for motives, isn't it?” Sir Clinton continued. “What's the big thing in the Foxhills group about which they might come to loggerheads? It stares you in the face—that old man's will. You've seen already that it's led to friction. Paul Fordingbridge won't recognise the claim of this nephew of his—we'll call him the claimant for short. He sat tight with his power of attorney and refused to abdicate. That suggests a few bright thoughts to me; and probably you feel the same about it.” He glanced at his watch, and with a gesture invited them to walk over the sands. “By the way, though,” he suggested, just as they were moving off, “you might note on your diagram, inspector, the difference between the light and heavy tracks of No. 3's feet. Make the trail of the deep footprints a bit darker.” [_see_ diagram on page 208] The inspector did as he was requested. “If you start with that assumption,” Wendover pointed out, as they began to move across the sands, “then it ought to lead you to the idea of two camps in the Fordingbridge lot.” “Who's in your camps?” Sir Clinton asked. “The claimant, Staveley, and Miss Fordingbridge would be in the one, since Staveley was living at the cottage and Miss Fordingbridge identifies the claimant. The other camp would be Paul Fordingbridge, with Mr. and Mrs. Fleetwood.” Sir Clinton nodded thoughtfully, and put a further question. “On that basis, squire, can you find a motive for each of these affairs?” “I think one might find some,” Wendover contended confidently. “In the first place, Peter Hay had known the claimant very well indeed in the old days. Therefore his evidence would be invaluable to either one side or the other; and whichever side he did _not_ favour might think it worth while to silence him. It was someone well known to Peter Hay who murdered him, if I'm not mistaken. In any case, it was someone in our own class. That was implicit in the facts.” “It's not beyond possibility, squire. Continue the analysis.” “Supposing Paul Fordingbridge were out of the way, who would oppose the claimant?” Wendover pursued. “The Fleetwoods,” said the inspector. “They're next in the succession. And Staveley was a witness of some value to the claimant, too, so he was put out of the way. Everything points to the same thing, you see, sir.” Wendover, bearing in mind the coming fall of the inspector's case, took this side-thrust amiably. “Let's go on,” he suggested. “There's the Cargill affair.” “I've got my own ideas about that,” the inspector interjected. “Though I haven't had time to work them up yet.” “Cargill's about the same build as the claimant,” Wendover continued, without noticing the interruption. “It seems to me quite on the cards that the attack on him was a case of mistaken identity. Or else—of course! He was a good witness for the claimant! He'd met him in the war, you remember. Perhaps that was why he was attacked.”