“Yes, sir; and Miss Peyton also saw. She was then in the doorway, asking Mr. Lockwood to come to breakfast.” Cray went in search of Helen and put the question to her suddenly. “What was Gordon Lockwood doing, when you went to call him to breakfast, Monday morning?” “He was—I don’t remember.” “Speak the truth—or it may be mean trouble for you and him, too.” “He was—he seemed to be dusting off a chair.” “With a duster?” “No; just passing over it with his hand.” “That isn’t dusting it.” “Well, I don’t know what you call it! Perhaps he was merely pushing the chair into place.” “It isn’t his custom to push the study furniture into place. He was erasing indicative marks on that plush chair back—that’s what he was doing.” “Absurd!” Helen cried; “what marks could there be?” “I don’t know. Come and let us see.” Cray took Helen to the study, and asked her to sit in the chair. “Lean back,” he directed. “Now, get up.” The girl obeyed, and there was plainly seen on the plush the faint but unmistakable imprint of the beaded design that adorned the back of the frock she wore. “I told you so!” Cray said, in triumph. “That plush registers every impress, and when Lockwood rubbed it smooth it was to erase a damaging bit of testimony.” “Rather far-fetched, Mr. Cray,” said Gordon Lockwood himself, who had come in and had heard and seen the latter part of the detective’s investigation. “Not so very, Mr. Lockwood, when you learn that the finger prints on the chair frame are your own and those of a certain young person who is already under suspicion.” Gordon Lockwood, as always under a sudden stress, became even more impassive, and his eyes glittered as he faced the attorney. “Don’t be too absurd, Mr. Cray,” he advised, coldly. “I suppose you mean Miss Austin—I prefer to have no veiled allusions. But the finding of her finger prints on a chair in this room, and mine also, does not seem to me to be in any way evidence of crime.” “No?” Cray gave him scorn for scorn. “Perhaps then, you can explain Miss Austin’s presence here that night.” “I don’t know that she was here—and I most certainly could not explain any of her movements. But I do deny your right to assume her guilty from her presence.” “Ah, you tacitly admit her presence, then. Indeed, one can scarcely doubt it, when it is shown that this little shoe of hers,” he took it from his pocket, “exactly fits the prints that cross the field of snow between here and the Adams house.” “To measure footprints—after all this time!” and Lockwood’s lip curled.