“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.  There was not a sign of any nail-marked footprint under the corpse, although there were many close around it.  It was evident, therefore, that the footprints of the deceased were made first and those of the nailed shoes afterwards.”

As Thorndyke paused the magistrate rubbed his nose thoughtfully, and the inspector gazed at the witness with a puzzled frown.

“The singularity of this fact,” my colleague resumed, “made me look at the footprints yet more critically, and then I made another discovery.  There was a double track of the nailed shoes, leading apparently from and back to the Shepherd’s Path.  But on examining these tracks more closely, I was astonished to find that the man who had made them had been walking backwards; that, in fact, he had walked backwards from the body to the Shepherd’s Path, had ascended it for a short distance, had turned round, and returned, still walking backwards, to the face of the cliff near the corpse, and there the tracks vanished altogether.  On the sand at this spot were some small, inconspicuous marks which might have been made by the end of a rope, and there were also a few small fragments which had fallen from the cliff above.  Observing these, I examined the surface of the cliff, and at one spot, about six feet above the beach, I found a freshly rubbed spot on which were parallel scratches such as might have been made by the nailed sole of a boot.  I then ascended the Shepherd’s Path, and examined the cliff from above, and here I found on the extreme edge a rather deep indentation, such as would be made by a taut rope, and, on lying down and looking over, I could see, some five feet from the top, another rubbed spot with very distinct parallel scratches.”

“You appear to infer,” said the chairman, “that this man performed these astonishing evolutions and was then hauled up the cliff?”

“That is what the appearances suggested,” replied Thorndyke.

The chairman pursed up his lips, raised his eyebrows, and glanced doubtfully at his brother magistrates.  Then, with a resigned air, he bowed to the witness to indicate that he was listening.