“Thank you,” said the magistrate.  “And now, Dr. Thorndyke, if you have given us all the facts, perhaps you will tell us what conclusions you have drawn from them.”

“The facts which I have stated,” said Thorndyke, “appear to me to indicate the following sequence of events.  The deceased died about midnight on September 27, from the effects of a poisonous dose of morphia, how or by whom administered I offer no opinion.  I think that his body was conveyed in a boat to Sundersley Gap.  The boat probably contained three men, of whom one remained in charge of it, one walked up the Gap and along the cliff towards St. Bridget’s Bay, and the third, having put on the shoes of the deceased, carried the body along the shore to the Bay.  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.

“Because,” replied Thorndyke, “there would then have been a set of tracks leading out of the Bay without a corresponding set leading into it; and this would have instantly suggested to a smart police-officer—­such as Sergeant Payne—­a landing from a boat.”

“Your explanation is highly ingenious,” said the magistrate, “and appears to cover all the very remarkable facts.  Have you anything more to tell us?”

“No, your Worship,” was the reply, “excepting” (here he took from Polton the last pair of moulds and passed them up to the magistrate) “that you will probably find these moulds of importance presently.”

As Thorndyke stepped from the box—­for there was no cross-examination—­the magistrates scrutinized the moulds with an air of perplexity; but they were too discreet to make any remark.

When the evidence of Professor Copland (which showed that an unquestionably lethal dose of morphia must have been swallowed) had been taken, the clerk called out the—­to me—­unfamiliar name of Jacob Gummer.  Thereupon an enormous pair of brown dreadnought trousers, from the upper end of which a smack-boy’s head and shoulders protruded, walked into the witness-box.