"Suggestive," said the bishop, drawing down the corners of his mouth. "Very suggestive, doctor. I recall a similar case at Riga in 1876; another in Constantinople in 1895; and still a third in — hum — in St. Louis in 1909."
"You do get about, don't you?" inquired Dr. Fell admiringly. He studied Morley Standish. "What business was Depping in?"
"Oh, something in the City, I believe."
"Urn. It's a curious thing," grunted Dr. Fell, scowling, "that whenever a man wants to give somebody a character of sound and colorless respectability, he says that he's something in the City. Why did Depping have a bad character hereabouts?"
Standish's manner became defensive and uncomfortable in a way that was reminiscent of his father.
"Bad character?" he repeated. "What do you mean?"
There was a pause. Dr. Fell only shook his head deprecatingly and continued to look at Standish in a benevolent fashion. For a still longer time he kept on staring, his massive head on one side.
"Erf said Morley Standish, and cleared his throat, "I mean, what makes you think he did have a bad character?"
He spoke with a certain weak truculence, and the doctor nodded.
"Well, one person, at least, appears to think he is a blister, and even your staunch parent didn't contradict it. Besides, you know, you yourself referred to him as an 'old ba-.' Eh?"
"What I say is this," replied Morley, hurriedly and defensively. "What I say is this. While it would have been more dignified, and all that, all the same you've got to look at it from an impersonal point of view. The only reason why anybody thought it was funny, or else disliked it, was because he liked to pay attention to girls only my sister's age, when he was past sixty years old. Maybe his idea of gallantries was ridiculous, but all the same," argued Morley, "it was because he was so prim and studious and fastidious that you couldn't associate it with him. It seemed a little — well, obscene."
Having delivered himself of these sentiments, as though he had been quoting a lesson, Standish bit hard on the stem of his pipe and regarded Dr. Fell in some defiance.
"Old rip with the ladies, was he?" inquired the doctor genially. "I don't suppose he did any real harm, did he?"
Standish's grim mouth slackened. "Thanks," he said in some relief. "I was afraid you'd take it — well, seriously, you know. Harm?. Good Lord, no; but he annoyed a lot of people… He especially used to put Hank Morgan's back up. A funny thing, because there are few people more broadminded than Hank. But I think it was Mr. Depping's pedantic mathematics-master way of talking that really annoyed him. This morning, when we got the news, Hank and Madeleine and my sister Patricia and I were having a game of doubles. The tennis courts aren't very far from here, and the first thing we knew Storer came running up the hill, and clawed at the wire, and babbled something about finding Depping dead in his study. Hank only said, 'No such luck,' and didn't even stop serving."
Dr. Fell was silent for a long time. The sun had drawn lower beyond the coppice, and the ugly deformities of the Guest House glittered in level shafts of light.
"Well come back to that presently," he said, making a gesture of irritation. "Hum, yes. I think we had better go up and look at the body of this very odd combination… But first, what was the remark you made when you arrived: something about They're my shoes'? You were examining—" He pointed with his stick to the edge of the brick path near the steps.
All this time, consciously or unconsciously, Morley Standish had been keeping one large foot dangling over a tuft of grass in the clayey soil beside the steps. He moved it now. He got up, large and stocky, and scowled.
It's a footprint," he said. "I may as well tell you it must have been made with one of my shoes."
The bishop, who throughout the recital had been politely trying to see past that blocking foot, strode forward and bent over it. It was close to the edge of the brick path, its toe pointing towards the steps, as though somebody had strayed slightly off the path with the left foot. The impression was sharp and fairly shallow, with a tuft of grass trampled into it: a large square-toed shoe, having some faint but distinct markings in the heelprint like an eight-sided star. Whitish traces clung inside the print and along its edges.
"You see what happened," Standish explained uneasily. There was the devil of a rain last night, a footprint would be effaced. But that thing is smack in the shelter of those steps… I say, don't look at me. I didn't make it. But look here."
He swivelled round and lowered one foot gently into the lines of the impression.
"I must beg of you, Morley" said the bishop, "not to-damage that print. If you will step aside…?" I have made quite a study of footprints, gentlemen. Hugh! Come here and let me have your assistance in examining this. We are fortunate. Clay, doctor, is by far the most accurate substance for recording an impression. Sand and snow, contrary to the popular impression, are almost valueless, as Dr. Hans Gross points out. The forward impulse of the foot in sand, for example, will lengthen the print anywhere from half an inch to two inches out of its natural dimension. As to breadth — stand aside, please, Morley." He looked round with a tight smile. "We shall certainly have an interesting exhibit to show Inspector Murch when he returns."
"Oh, Murch found it," said Standish, breaking off his effort to lower his shoe gingerly into the print. "He found it right enough. He and Hank Morgan got some plaster-of-Paris and made a cast of it. I knew they'd found a print, but I didn't even go to look at it until this afternoon."
"Oh, ah," said the bishop. He stopped, and rubbed his mouth. "Indeed! That was more of young Morgan's work, I dare say. Unfortunate. Most unfortunate." Morley stared.
"You're jolly well right it's unfortunate!" he agreed, his voice booming out with sudden nervousness and annoyance. "Look here. It fits. I'm the only person hereabouts with a shoe as large as that. Not only that, but I can even identify the pair of shoes… I’ll swear I wasn't mucking about here last night, but you can see for yourself that's a fairly fresh print. I wonder if Murch is thinking—?"
Dr. Fell's voice struck in so quietly and easily that Standish paused. The doctor had lumbered over to blink at the impression in his vague, nearsighted way.
"How can you identify the shoes?" he inquired.
"By the marks on the heel. It's a pair I chucked away… To understand that," explained Standish, pushing back his hat, "you'd have to know my mother. She's one of the best, mother is, but she gets notions. She is afflicted by the power of suggestion. The moment she hears of a new food over the wireless, we get it till we choke. If she hears of a new medicine for any ailment whatever, she becomes convinced that everybody in the house has got the ailment, and doses us all silly. Well," said Morley, with brooding resignation, "not very long ago she read a spirited article in a magazine about, Why submit to the tyranny of the cobbler? It proved what a difference you could make to your household budget if you bought rubber heels at cost and tacked 'em on your own shoes when the old heels wore out. It impressed her so much that she sent to town for great quantities of rubber heels; thousands of rubber heels; God knows how many rubber heels. I never knew there were so many rubber heels in the world. The house was swamped in 'em. They turned up everywhere. You couldn't even open the medicine chest in the bathroom without getting a shower of rubber heels. But worst of it was that you were supposed to nail 'em on yourself — that was a part of the diabolical design, to teach the British household a useful art. The result was—"