slightest evidence of a wax
stain.' He added: 'Therefore the candle is a blind; false evidence to
give us the impression of a night affair.'

"Sir Henry's jaw sagged; now his mouth gaped. 'True,' he said. 'True,
true.' He seemed to get some relief to his damaged deductions out of the
repeated word.

"The irony in Mr. Meadows' voice increased a little. 'Nor is that all,'
he said. 'The smear on the floor, and the stains in which the naked
foot tracked, are not human blood. They're not any sort of blood. It
was clearly evident when you had your lens over them. They show no
coagulated fiber. They show only the evidences of dye--weak dye--watered
red ink, I'd say.'

"I thought Sir Henry was going to crumple up in his chair. He seemed to
get loose and baggy in some extraordinary fashion, and his gaping jaw
worked. 'But the footprints,' he said, 'the naked footprints?' His voice
was a sort of stutter-the sort of shaken stutter of a man who has come
a' tumbling cropper.

"The American actually laughed: he laughed as we sometimes laugh at a
mental defective.

"'They're not footprints!' he said. 'Nobody ever had a foot cambered
like that, or with a heel like it, or with toes like it. Somebody made
those prints with his hand--the edge of his palm for the heel and the
balls of his fingers for the toes. The wide, unstained distances
between these heelprints and the prints of the ball of the toes show the
impossible arch.'

"Sir Henry was like a man gone to pieces. 'But who--who made them?' he
faltered.

"The American leaned forward and put the big glass over the prints that
Sir Henry had made with his fingers in the white dust on the mahogany
table. 'I think you know the answer to your question,' he said. 'The
whorls of these prints are identical with those of the toe tracks.'

"Then he laid the glass carefully down, sat back in his chair, folded
his arms and looked at Sir Henry.

"'Now,' he said, 'will you kindly tell me why you have gone to the
trouble of manufacturing all these false evidences of a crime?"'

The girl paused. There was intense silence in the drawing-room. The aged
man at the window had turned and was looking at her. The face of the old
woman seemed vague and uncertain.

The girl smiled.

"Then," she said, "the real, amazing miracle happened. Sir Henry got on
his feet, his big body tense, his face like iron, his voice ringing.

"'I went to that trouble,' he said, 'because I wished to demonstrate--I