Chapter III: Fresh Evidence

The immediate effect upon my mind of the reading of Miss Lewsome's diary was to supply me with what had been wanting: a motive for the crime. Everything had pointed in my estimation to treachery in the household; everything seemed to be against the possibility of the crime being committed by an outsider.

Assuming thieves and murderers not connected with the household, what possible reason could have brought them to run such a risk as to shoot down an innocent, unoffending girl within forty yards of a dwelling-house, where probably several men were within call, and certainly within earshot of the sound of firearms? Then again, if a stranger had done this thing for the sake of robbery, how could he be sure that the girl would have money or a watch about her? A third and stronger reason against any stranger criminal was the fact that no stranger had left the imprint of his steps in the garden plot near the gate on the further side of which the girl had fallen. Her head, as she lay, all but touched the lower bar of the orchard gate. She had been shot down at her accustomed trysting-place with her lover, in the dusk, and under deep shadow of the trees, in the darkness of late evening. What stranger could guess she would be there? What stranger could know so well where and how she would stand as to be able to fire three following shots, through the shadows of falling night, with such deadly aim as to take effect within an inch of each other on the poor girl's temple?

I abandoned the idea of a murder for the sake of robbery. It was untenable. I scouted the theory suggested by Charles Jex, and persevered in by him with curious insistence, that the murderers were the bicyclists whom he had seen in the bar at the Lion. The murderer was an inmate of Jex Farm; of that there could be no manner of doubt; the evidence of the footprints was proof enough for that.

Who, then, was the murderer?

Before I answer that question, I put in another document, a very important piece of evidence. It is the report--the very concise and careful report--of one of the most conscientious, painstaking and intelligent provincial officers I have ever had the pleasure of doing business with, Sergeant Edwardes, of the Surrey Constabulary.

The Inspector took up the bundle, selected one paper and gave me to read--_Sergeant Edwardes's Report on the footprints near the spot where the body of Miss Judson was found at_ 9:35 P.M. _of October_ 17, 189--. It ran as follows:

"I have counted 43 distinct human footsteps and 54 partial imprints. Of the 43, 24 are made by the left foot and only 19 by the right. Of the 54 faint or partial impressions I found 17 of the left foot and only 12 of the right, the rest are not distinctive enough to pronounce upon.

"Of the total number of the fainter footprints 18 are deeply marked in the soft clay, and others are less strongly impressed. Of the 18 that are deeply marked, 11 are made by the left foot, 7 by the right.

"This accords with what I was told subsequently--that Mr. Jex's three laborers, and Mr. Jex himself, on finding Miss Judson's body, at once took it up in their arms and bore it to the house.

"Bearers of a heavy weight, such as a dead body, walking together, invariably bear heavily upon the left foot, both those who are supporting it on the left and those who are supporting it on the right side.

"Distinguishing the bootprints by their length, breadth, and the pattern of the nail-marks upon them, I find that they are the footprints of five separate persons, all of them men. I also found, clearly impressed, the footprints of a sixth person, a woman, namely, those of the victim herself.

"There had been heavy rain in the morning of the 17th, and the soil is a sticky clay. I examined the marks at daybreak on the morning of the 18th, and, as it had not rained during the night, the impressions were as fresh as if they had just been made. By my orders no one had been allowed to come near the spot where the body was found during the night. Just inside the gate of the orchard the grass has been long ago trodden away by passers-by, leaving the earth bare; and this patch of bare earth forms an area rather broader than the gate. On this area the body had fallen, and round about the spot where it had lain, I found all the footprints on which I am reporting.

"I have compared the boots worn by the laborers with the impressions near the gate. They correspond in every particular.

"In the case of the footprints of the three laborers a majority of the deeper impressions are made by the left boot.

"I therefore conclude that all three men came upon the spot only to carry away the body of the girl, and hold no hand in her death. I argue the same from the footprints made by Mr. Jex. He also had borne more heavily with the left than with the right foot. He also, therefore, must have come on the spot only to bear off the body, and could have taken no part in the girl's murder.

"There are almost an exactly equal number of impressions, plain or faint, of the footprints of these four persons.

"There remain the footprints of a fifth person. They are the impressions of a man's foot, but the hobnailed boots that made them, though full-sized, are of a rather lighter make than the others, and the nail-marks are smaller, the boots are newer, for the sides of the impressions have a cleaner cut, and, what is important, the impressions _of the left foot are in no case deeper than those of the right_.

"This person, therefore, clearly did not assist in carrying the body. The person who left these footprints is, in my opinion, the man who, on the night of the 17th of October last, murdered Miss Mary Judson."