This would account for the great depth and short
stride of the tracks that have been spoken of as those of the deceased.
Having reached the Bay, I believe that this man laid the corpse down on
his tracks, and then trampled the sand in the neighbourhood. He next
took off deceased's shoes and put them on the corpse; then he put on a
pair of boots or shoes which he had been carrying--perhaps hung round
his neck--and which had been prepared with nails to imitate Draper's
shoes. In these shoes he again trampled over the area near the corpse.
Then he walked backwards to the Shepherd's Path, and from it again,
still backwards, to the face of the cliff. Here his accomplice had
lowered a rope, by which he climbed up to the top. At the top he took
off the nailed shoes, and the two men walked back to the Gap, where the
man who had carried the rope took his confederate on his back, and
carried him down to the boat to avoid leaving the tracks of stockinged
feet. The tracks that I saw at the Gap certainly indicated that the man
was carrying something very heavy when he returned to the boat."
"But why should the man have climbed a rope up the cliff when he could
have walked up the Shepherd's Path?" the magistrate asked.
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