“So you should,” acknowledged Sweetwater, “but when the detective instinct is aroused it is hard for a man to be just to his rivals; besides, I was otherwise occupied.  I had Miss Page to watch.  Happily for me, you had decided that she should not be allowed to leave town till after the inquest, and so my task became easy.  This whole day I have spent in sight of Mr. Sutherland’s house, and at nightfall I was rewarded by detecting her end a prolonged walk in the garden by a hurried dash into the woods opposite.  I followed her and noted carefully all that she did.  As she had just seen Frederick Sutherland and Miss Halliday disappear up the road together, she probably felt free to do as she liked, for she walked very directly to the old tree we have just come from, and kneeling down beside it pulled from the hole underneath something which rattled in her hand with that peculiar sound we associate with fresh bank-notes.  I had approached her as near as I dared, and was peering around a tree trunk, when she stooped down again and plunged both hands into the hole.  She remained in this position so long that I did not know what to make of it.  But she rose at last and turned toward home, laughing to herself in a wicked but pleased way that did not tend to make me think any more of her.  The moon was shining very brightly by this time and I could readily perceive every detail of her person.  She held her hands out before her and shook them more than once as she trod by me, so I was sure there was nothing in them, and this is why I was so confident we should find the money still in the hole.

“When I saw her enter the house, I set out to find you, but the court-house room was empty, and it was a long time before I learned where to look for you.  But at last a fellow at Brighton’s corner said he saw four men go by on their way to Zabel’s cottage, and on the chance of finding you amongst them, I turned down here.  The shock you gave me in announcing that you had discovered the murderer of Agatha Webb knocked me over for a moment, but now I hope you realise, as I do, that this wretched man could never have had an active hand in her death, notwithstanding the fact that one of the stolen bills has been found in his possession.  For, and here is my great point, the proof is not wanting that Miss Page visited this house as well as Mrs. Webb’s during her famous escapade; or at least stood under the window beneath which I have just been searching.  A footprint can be seen there, sirs, a very plain footprint, and if Dr. Talbot will take the trouble to compare it with the slipper he holds in his hand, he will find it to have been made by the foot that wore that slipper.”

The coroner, with a quick glance from the slipper in his hand up to Sweetwater’s eager face, showed a decided disposition to make the experiment thus suggested.  But Mr. Fenton, whose mind was full of the Zabel tragedy, interrupted them with the question: 

“But how do you explain by this hypothesis the fact of James Zabel trying to pass one of the twenty-dollar bills stolen from Mrs. Webb’s cupboard?  Do you consider Miss Page generous enough to give him that money?”