“I don’t know, I’m sure. In the Sherlock Holmes stories it’s usually cigar ashes or something like that. Oh, pshaw! I don’t suppose we’ll find anything.”

“I think in detective stories everything is found out by footprints. I never saw anything like the obliging way in which people make footprints for detectives.”

“And how absurd it is!” commented Rob. “I don’t believe footprints are ever made clearly enough to deduce the rest of the man from.”

“Well, you see, in detective stories, there’s always that ‘light snow which had fallen late the night before.’ ”

“Yes,” said Fessenden, laughing at her cleverness, “and there’s always some minor character who chances to time that snow exactly, and who knows when it began and when it stopped.”