itted his ninth crime, and that he had
chosen quite a new locality, namely, the lonely stretch of rising
ground known to Londoners as Primrose Hill.

"The police," so Bunting read, "are very reserved as to the
circumstances which led to the finding of the body of The Avenger's
latest victim. But we have reason to believe that they possess
several really important clues, and that one of them is concerned
with the half-worn rubber sole of which we are the first to reproduce
an outline to-day. (See over page.)"

And Bunting, turning the sheet round about, saw the irregular outline
he had already seen in the early edition of the Sun, that purporting
to be a facsimile of the imprint left by The Avenger's rubber sole.

He stared down at the rough outline which took up so much of the
space which should have been devoted to reading matter with a queer,
sinking feeling of terrified alarm. Again and again criminals had
been tracked by the marks their boots or shoes had made at or near
the scenes of their misdoings.

Practically the only job Bunting did in his own house of a menial
kind was the cleaning of the boots and shoes. He had already
visualised early this very afternoon the little row with which he
dealt each morning--first came his wife's strong, serviceable
boots, then his own two pairs, a good deal patched and mended, and
next to his own Mr. Sleuth's strong, hardly worn, and expensive
buttoned boots. Of late a dear little coquettish high-heeled pair
of outdoor shoes with thin, paperlike soles, bought by Daisy for
her trip to London, had ended the row. The girl had worn these
thin shoes persistently, in defiance of Ellen's reproof and advice,
and he, Bunting, had only once had to clean her more sensible
country pair, and that only because the others had become wet though
the day he and she had accompanied young Chandler to Scotland Yard.

Slowly he returned across the road. Somehow the thought of going
in again, of hearing his wife's sarcastic comments, of parrying
Daisy's eager questions, had become intolerable. So he walked
slowly, trying to put off the evil moment when he would have to tell
them what was in his paper.

The lamp under which he had stood reading was not exactly opposite
the house. It was rather to the right of it. And when, having
crossed over the roadway, he walked along the pavement towards his
own gate, he heard odd, shuffling sounds coming from the inner side
of the low wall which shut off h