Godin kept his own counsel.Official methods, and the hasty generalisations which form a part thereof - to say nothing of the petty rivalries and the passion for notoriety - can do much to hinder our own work, and, I believe, nothing to help it.What say you?""That we keep our work to ourselves," Gwen quickly rejoined, and Isignified that I was of the same opinion."Then," Maitland continued, "I may say this in answer to your question.I have ascertained something which may bear upon the case in hand.You will remember that part of the gravel for redressing the croquet ground was dumped under the east window there.The painters, I learn, finished painting that side of the house yesterday forenoon before the gravel was removed and placed upon the ground, so that any footprints they may have made in it while about their work were obliterated.As you see, there was loose gravel left under the window to the depth of about two inches.I carefully examined this gravel this morning -=20there were no footprints."
I glanced at Gwen; her face had a set expression, and she was deathly pale."There were, however," he continued, "places where the gravel had been tamped down as if by the pressure of a rectangular board.
I examined these minutely and, by careful measurement and close scrutiny of some peculiar markings suggestive of the grain of wood, satisfied myself that the depressions in the gravel were made by two, and not, as I had at first thought, by one small piece of wood.Ifound further that these two boards had always borne certain relative relations to each other, and that when one had been turned around the other had undergone a similar rotation.This last is, in my mind, a most important point, for, when coupled with the fact that between any two impressions of the same board the distance was sensibly constant, and was that of a short stride, there could be no reasonable doubt but these boards had been worn upon some person's feet.They could not have been thrown down merely to be stepped upon, for, in that case, they would not have borne fixed relations to each other - probably would not have been turned end for end at all - and certainly, both would not always have happened to get turned at the same time.I procured a board of the combined area of the two supposed to have made the impressions in the gravel, and weighted it down until, as nearly as I could measure, it impacted the soil to the same extent the others had.The weight was one hundred and thirty-five pounds, which is about right for a man five feet five inches tall.The position of the depressions in the gravel indicated a stride just about right for a man of that height.
"There was one other most important discovery which I made after Ihad divided the impressions into two classes - according as they were produced by the right or left board - which was that when the right foot was thrown forward the stride was from three to four inches longer than when the left foot led.Directly under the window there was a deep impression in the sand.I took a plaster cast of it, and here it is," he said, producing an excellent facsimile of a closed hand."There can be little doubt," he continued, "from the position occupied by the depression, of which this is a reverse copy, that it was either accidentally made by someone who, stooping before the east window to avoid obstructing its light, suddenly lost his balance and regained his equilibrium by thus thrusting out his hand, or - and this seems far more likely to me - that the hand was deliberately placed in the gravel in order to steady its possessor while he performed some peculiar operation."At this point I ventured to ask why he regarded the latter view as so much more tenable than the former."There are several reasons,"he replied, "which render the view I prefer to take all but certain.
First, the impression was made by the left hand.Second, it is the impression of a closed hand, with the upper joints of the fingers undermost.Did you ever know one to save himself from falling by thrusting out a closed hand? Certainly not.There is a certain amount of fear, however slight, invariably associated with losing one's balance.This sentiment, so far as the hand is concerned, is expressed by opening it and spreading the fingers.This he would instinctively have done, if falling.Then there is the position of the impression relative to the window and some slight testimony upon the sill and glass, for the thorough investigation of which I have been obliged to await my microscope.I have worked diligently, but that is all I have been able to accomplish.""All!" exclaimed Gwen, regarding him with ill-concealed admiration.
"It seems to me a very great deal.The thoroughness, the minuteness of it all, overwhelms me; but, tell me, have your discoveries led you to any conclusion?" "No," he replied, "nothing definite yet; Imust not allow myself to become wedded to any theory, so long as there is anything further to be learned.If I were to hazard a few idle guesses, I should say your father was murdered in some mysterious way - by a person about five feet five inches tall, weighing, say, one hundred and thirty-five pounds, and having a lame leg, or, perhaps, one limb shorter than the other, - at all events having some deformity or ailment causing a variation in the length of the strides.I should guess also that this person's feet had some marked peculiarity, since such pains had been taken to conceal the footprints.Then the cast of the hand here encourages speculation.
