ng come
together again on the removal of the strain, there was nothing that a
person who was not something of a connoisseur of shoe-leather would have
noticed. Even less noticeable, and indeed not to be seen at all unless
one were looking for it, was a slight straining of the stitches uniting
the upper to the sole. At the toe and on the outer side of each
shoe this stitching had been dragged until it was visible on a close
inspection of the join.

These indications, of course, could mean only one thing--the shoes had
been worn by some one for whom they were too small.

Now it was clear at a glance that Manderson was always thoroughly well
shod, and careful, perhaps a little vain, of his small and narrow feet.
Not one of the other shoes in the collection, as I soon ascertained,
bore similar marks; they had not belonged to a man who squeezed himself
into tight shoe-leather. Some one who was not Manderson had worn these
shoes, and worn them recently; the edges of the tears were quite fresh.

The possibility of some one having worn them since Manderson's death
was not worth considering; the body had only been found about twenty-six
hours when I was examining the shoes; besides, why should any one wear
them? The possibility of some one having borrowed Manderson's shoes and
spoiled them for him while he was alive seemed about as negligible. With
others to choose from he would not have worn these. Besides, the only
men in the place were the butler and the two secretaries. But I do not
say that I gave those possibilities even as much consideration as they
deserved, for my thoughts were running away with me, and I have always
found it good policy, in cases of this sort, to let them have their
heads. Ever since I had got out of the train at Marlstone early that
morning I had been steeped in details of the Manderson affair; the thing
had not once been out of my head. Suddenly the moment had come when the
daemon wakes and begins to range.

Let me put it less fancifully. After all, it is a detail of psychology
familiar enough to all whose business or inclination brings them in
contact with difficult affairs of any kind. Swiftly and spontaneously,
when chance or effort puts one in possession of the key-fact in any
system of baffling circumstances, one's ideas seem to rush to group
themselves anew in relation to that fact, so that they are suddenly
rearranged almost before one has consciously grasped the significance
of the key-fa