Some fifteen minutes later the two men were ascending the stairs of the house in Horne Terrace. The door of No. 12 was shut, and to Cheyne’s knock there was no response. “I’m afraid you needn’t expect Miss Merrill to have got back,” French commented. “I had better open the door.” He worked at it for a few moments, first with his bunch of skeleton keys, then with a bent wire, until the bolt shot back, and pushing open the door, they entered the room. It was just as Cheyne had last seen it except that the kettle and tea equipage had been tidied away. French stood in the middle of the floor, glancing keenly round on the contents. Then he moved to the other door. “This her bedroom?” he inquired, as he pushed it open and looked in. As Cheyne followed him into the tiny apartment, he felt as a devout Mohammedan might, who through stress of circumstances entered fully shod into one of the holy places of his religion. It seemed nothing short of profanation for himself and this commonplace inspector of police to intrude into a place so hallowed by association with Her. In a kind of reverent awe he looked about him. There was the bed in which She slept, the table at which She dressed, the wardrobe in which Her dresses hung, and there—what were those? He stood, stricken motionless by surprise, staring at a tiny pair of rather high-heeled brown shoes which were lying on their sides on the floor in front of a chair. French noted his expression. “What is it?” he queried, following the direction of the other’s eyes. “Her shoes!” Cheyne said in a tone of wonder, as he might have said: “Her diamond coronet.” French frowned. “Well, what’s wonderful about that?” he asked with the nearest approach to sharpness in his tone that Cheyne had yet heard. “Her shoes,” Cheyne repeated. “Her shoes that she wore last night.” It was now French’s turn to look interested. “Sure of that?” he asked, picking up the shoes. “Certain. I saw them on her in the train to Wembley. Unless she has two absolutely identical pairs, she was wearing those.” French had been turning the shoes over in his hand. “You said you saw a mark of where someone had slipped on the bank behind the wall you threw the tracing over,” he went on. “You might describe that mark.” “It was just a kind of scrape on the sloping ground, with the footprint below it. Her foot had evidently slipped down till it came to a firmer place.” “Right foot or left?” “Right.” “And which way was the toe pointing: towards the bank or parallel with it?” “Parallel. She had evidently climbed up diagonally.” “Quite so. Now another question. If you were standing in the field looking towards the bank, did she climb towards the right hand or the left?” “The left.” “And the soil where the mark was; you might describe that.” “It was rather light in color, a yellowish brown. It was clayey, and the print showed clearly, as it would in stiff putty.” French nodded.