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Rh the outgoing footmarks stained with blood there is superimposed an ingoing one. I wonder what he went back for—the little jade figures as an after thought? It is all ridiculous—stupid.”

“Well, he’s given himself away pretty hopelessly.”

“N’est-ce pas? I tell you, Hastings, it goes against reason. It offends my little gray cells. Let us go into his bedroom—ah, yes; there is the smear of blood on the lintel and just a trace of footmarks—blood-stained. Robert Grant’s footmarks, and his only, near the body—Robert Grant the only man who went near the house. Yes, it must be so.”

“What about the old woman?” I said suddenly. “She was in the house alone after Grant had gone for the milk. She might have killed him and then gone out. Her feet would leave no prints if she hadn’t been outside.”

“Very good, Hastings. I wondered whether that hypothesis would occur to you. I had already thought of it and rejected it. Betsy Andrews is a local woman, well known hereabouts. She can have no connection with the Big Four; and, besides, old Whalley was a powerful fellow, by all accounts. This is a man’s work—not a woman’s.”

“I suppose the Big Four couldn’t have had