“So much for the motive.  The next question is, Who was the perpetrator of this shocking crime?  And the answer to that question is given in a very singular and dramatic circumstance, a circumstance that illustrates once more the amazing lack of precaution shown by persons who commit such crimes.  The murderer was wearing a very remarkable pair of shoes, and those shoes left very remarkable footprints in the smooth sand, and those footprints were seen and examined by a very acute and painstaking police-officer, Sergeant Payne, whose evidence you will hear presently.  The sergeant not only examined the footprints, he made careful drawings of them on the spot—­on the spot, mind you, not from memory—­and he made very exact measurements of them, which he duly noted down.  And from those drawings and those measurements, those tell-tale shoes have been identified, and are here for your inspection.

“And now, who is the owner of those very singular, those almost unique shoes?  I have said that the motive of this murder must have been a personal one, and, behold! the owner of those shoes happens to be the one person in the whole of this district who could have had a motive for compassing the murdered man’s death.  Those shoes belong to, and were taken from the foot of, the prisoner, Alfred Draper, and the prisoner, Alfred Draper, is the only person living in this neighbourhood who was acquainted with the deceased.

“It has been stated in evidence at the inquest that the relations of these two men, the prisoner and the deceased, were entirely friendly; but I shall prove to you that they were not so friendly as has been supposed.  I shall prove to you, by the evidence of the prisoner’s housekeeper, that the deceased was often an unwelcome visitor at the house, that the prisoner often denied himself when he was really at home and disengaged, and, in short, that he appeared constantly to shun and avoid the deceased.

“One more question and I have finished.  Where was the prisoner on the night of the murder?  The answer is that he was in a house little more than half a mile from the scene of the crime.  And who was with him in that house?  Who was there to observe and testify to his going forth and his coming home?  No one.  He was alone in the house.  On that night, of all nights, he was alone.  Not a soul was there to rouse at the creak of a door or the tread of a shoe—­to tell as whether he slept or whether he stole forth in the dead of the night.

“Such are the facts of this case.  I believe that they are not disputed, and I assert that, taken together, they are susceptible of only one explanation, which is that the prisoner, Alfred Draper, is the man who murdered the deceased, Charles Hearn.”

Immediately on the conclusion of this address, the witnesses were called, and the evidence given was identical with that at the inquest.  The only new witness for the prosecution was Draper’s housekeeper, and her evidence fully bore out Mr. Bashfield’s statement.  The sergeant’s account of the footprints was listened to with breathless interest, and at its conclusion the presiding magistrate—­a retired solicitor, once well known in criminal practice—­put a question which interested me as showing how clearly Thorndyke had foreseen the course of events, recalling, as it did, his remark on the night when we were caught in the rain.