The incredible folly that the wearing
of such shoes indicated caused me to look more closely at the
footprints, and then I made the surprising discovery that there had in
reality been no struggle; that, in fact, the two sets of footprints had
been made at different times."
"At different times!" the magistrate exclaimed in astonishment.
"Yes. The interval between them may have been one of hours or one only
of seconds, but the undoubted fact is that the two sets of footprints
were made, not simultaneously, but in succession."
"But how did you arrive at that fact?" the magistrate asked.
"It was very obvious when one looked," said Thorndyke. "The marks of the
deceased man's shoes showed that he repeatedly trod in his own
footprints; but never in a single instance did he tread in the
footprints of the other man, although they covered the same area. The
man with the nailed shoes, on the contrary, not only trod in his own
footprints, but with equal frequency in those of the deceased. Moreover,
when the body was removed, I observed that the footprints in the sand on
which it was lying were exclusively those of the deceased.
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