The surgeon also
busied himself in noting down the facts concerning which he would have
to give evidence, while Thorndyke regarded in silence and with an air of
intense preoccupation the footprints around the body which remained to
testify to the circumstances of the crime.
"It is pretty clear, up to a certain point," the sergeant observed, as
he concluded his investigations, "how the affair happened, and it is
pretty clear, too, that the murder was premeditated. You see, Doctor,
the deceased gentleman, Mr. Hearn, was apparently walking home from Port
Marston; we saw his footprints along the shore--those rubber heels make
them easy to identify--and he didn't go down Sundersley Gap. He
probably meant to climb up the cliff by that little track that you see
there, which the people about here call the Shepherd's Path. Now the
murderer must have known that he was coming, and waited upon the cliff
to keep a lookout. When he saw Mr. Hearn enter the bay, he came down the
path and attacked him, and, after a tough struggle, succeeded in
stabbing him. Then he turned and went back up the path. You can see the
double track between the path and the place where the struggle took
place, and the footprints going to the path are on top of those coming
from it.
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