“I suppose you haven’t heard of our discovery, Mr. Pullar?” French began when he was seated in the proprietor’s office. The whole business was bound to come out at the inquest, so he might as well enlist the other’s goodwill by telling him confidentially something about it. Mr. Pullar cautiously admitted he hadn’t heard anything unusual. “This is unusual enough for any one,” French assured him, and he told of the finding of the grave on the moor, though making no mention of his doubts and fears about Roper. Mr. Pullar was duly impressed and repeatedly begged that his soul might be blessed. When he had absorbed the news French turned to the real object of his call. “I thought that maybe you could give me a bit of help, Mr. Pullar. You’d perhaps be interested to know how I got on to the thing. Well, it was in this way.” He took from the matchbox the piece of clay he had found on the floor of the shed. “I picked this up in the shed, and as that sort of clay is covered everywhere here with three feet of dark soil, it followed that some one had dug a hole more than three feet deep.” Mr. Pullar expressed his admiration of the other’s perspicacity with the same pious wish as before. “Now you see,” French continued, “this clay was sticking to a shoe. It probably got a bit dry in the shed and dropped or got knocked off. Now, Mr. Pullar, can you tell me what kind of a shoe it was?” Mr. Pullar shook his head. With every wish to assist, he was doubtful if he could answer the question. He picked up the piece of clay and turned it over gingerly in his fingers. “Well,” he said presently, pointing to the hollow curve, “that’s been sticking round the outside of a heel, that has. If it had been a toe it would have been squeezed flatter. But that’s the square-edged mark of a heel.” He looked interrogatively at French, who hastened to interject: “Just what I thought, Mr. Pullar. A man’s heel.” “Yes, a man’s heel I would think: though, mind you, it’s not easy to tell the difference between a man’s and some of these flat heeled shoes women wear now.” “I thought it was a man’s from the size.” “No: it might be either a big woman or a small man. Sevens, I should say.” He got up and put his head through the office door. “Here, John! Bring me three pairs of gents’ black Fitwells: a six and a half, a seven and an eight: medium weight.” When the shoes came Mr. Pullar attempted to fit the circle of clay to the curve of each heel. French was delighted with the thorough and systematic way he set about it. He tried with all three sizes, then roared out for a pair of sixes and a pair of nines. “It’s no good, Mr. French,” he said when he had tested these also. “Look for yourself. It’s smaller than a nine, but you can’t tell any more than that. It might be a six or a seven or an eight. It isn’t sharp enough to say.”