He read the brief through twice, thought it over well, and could make little of it.  It was perfectly obvious to him that there had been foul play somewhere, but he found himself quite unable to form a workable hypothesis.  Was the person who had been seen running away concerned in the matter?—­if it was a person.  If so, was he the author of the footprints?  Of course the ex-lawyer’s clerk had something to do with it, but what?  In vain did Geoffrey cudgel his brains; every idea that occurred to him broke down somewhere or other.

“We shall lose this,” he said aloud in despair; “suspicious circumstances are not enough to upset a will,” and then, addressing Beatrice, who was sitting at the table, working: 

“Here, Miss Granger, you have a smattering of law, see if you can make anything of this,” and he pushed the heavy brief towards her.

Beatrice took it with a laugh, and for the next three-quarters of an hour her fair brow was puckered up in a way quaint to see.  At last she finished and shut the brief up.  “Let me look at the photographs,” she said.

Geoffrey handed them to her.  She very carefully examined first one and then the other, and as she did so a light of intelligence broke out upon her face.

“Well, Portia, have you got it?” he asked.

“I have got something,” she answered.  “I do not know if it is right.  Don’t you see, the old man was superstitious; they frightened him first of all by a ghostly voice or some such thing into signing the will, and then to death after he had signed it.  The lawyer’s clerk prepared the will—­he would know how to do it.  Then he was smuggled into the room under the bed, or somewhere, dressed up as a ghost perhaps.  The sending for the son by the niece was a blind.  The thing that was seen running away was a boy—­those footprints were made by a boy.  I have seen so many thousands on the sands here that I could swear to it.  He was attracted to the house from the road, which was quite near, by catching sight of something unusual through the blind; the brief says there were no curtains or shutters.  Now look at the photographs of the footprints.  See in No. 1, found outside the window, the toes are pressed down deeply into the mud.  The owner of the feet was standing on tip-toe to get a better view.  But in No. 2, which was found near where the son thought he saw a person running, the toes are spread out quite wide.  That is the footprint of some one who was in a great hurry.  Now it is not probable that a boy had anything to do with the testator’s death.  Why, then, was the boy running so hard?  I will tell you:  because he was frightened at something he had seen through the blind.  So frightened was he, that he will not come forward, or answer the advertisements and inquiries.  Find a boy in that town who has a joint missing on the third toe of the right foot, and you will soon know all about it.”

“By Jove,” said Geoffrey, “what a criminal lawyer you would make!  I believe that you have got it.  But how are we to find this boy with the missing toe-joint?  Every possible inquiry has already been made and failed.  Nobody has seen such a boy, whose deficiency would probably be known by his parents, or schoolfellows.”