“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been able to reconstruct things. There were your footprints, you see, leading up from the bottom of the garden, and a place where you had obviously stopped and stooped down, and a kind of dent in the grass which was highly suggestive. By the way, what was your theory of the pistol being there?”

“I presumed that it had been dropped by the man in his flight.”

Battle shook his head.

“Not dropped, Sir Oswald. There are two points against that. To begin with, there are only one set of footprints crossing the lawn just there⁠—your own.”

“I see,” said Sir Oswald thoughtfully.

“Can you be sure of that, Battle?” put in George.

“Quite sure, sir. There are one other set of tracks crossing the lawn, Miss Wade’s, but they are a good deal farther to the left.”