“Nothing but pieces of seaweed,” said Cottrell Hampstead,

Munn eyed them.  Then he turned to look at the floor.

“Those are about the size of your tracks, Brenner.  But they were made in red clay.  How do you account for that?”

“Tobey wears my shoes,’” said Brenner.

Mrs. Brenner gasped.  She advanced to Munn.

“What you asking all these questions for?” she pleaded.

Munn did not answer her.  After a moment he asked.  “Did you hear a scream this afternoon?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“How long after the screaming did your son come in?”

She hesitated.  What was the best answer to make?  Bewildered, she tried to decide.  “Ten minutes or so,” she said.

“Just so,” agreed Munn.  “Brenner, when did you come in?”

A trace of Mart’s sullenness rose in his face.  “I told you that once,” he said.

“I mean how long after Tobey?”

“I dunno,” said Mart.

“How long, Mrs. Brenner?”

She hesitated again.  She scented a trap.  “Oh, ’bout ten to fifteen minutes, I guess,” she said.

Suddenly she burst out passionately.  “What you hounding us for?  We don’t know nothing about the man on the hill.  You ain’t after the rest of the folks in the village like you are after us.  Why you doing it?  We ain’t done nothing.”

Munn made a slight gesture to Roamer, who rose and went to the door, and opened it.  He reached out into the darkness.  Then he turned.  He was holding something in his hand, but Mrs. Brenner could not see what it was.

“You chop your wood with a short, heavy axe, don’t you, Brenner?” said Munn.

Brenner nodded.

“It’s marked with your name, isn’t it?”

Brenner nodded again.

“Is this the axe?”

Mrs. Brenner gave a short, sharp scream.  Red and clotted, even the handle marked with bloody spots, the axe was theirs.

Brenner started to his feet.  “God!” he yelped, “that’s where that axe went!  Tobey took it!” More calmly he proceeded, “This afternoon before I went down on the beach I thought I’d chop some wood on the hill.  But the axe was gone.  So after I’d looked sharp for it and couldn’t find it, I gave it up.”

“Tobey didn’t do it!” Mrs. Brenner cried thinly.  “He’s as harmless as a baby!  He didn’t do it!  He didn’t do it!”

“How about those clay tracks, Mrs. Brenner?  There is red clay on the hill where the man was killed.  There is red clay on your floor.”  Munn spoke kindly.

“Mart tracked in that clay.  He changed shoes with Tobey.  I tell you that’s the truth.”  She was past caring for any harm that might befall her.

Brenner smiled with a wide tolerance.  “It’s likely, ain’t it, that I’d change into shoes as wet as these?”

“Those tracks are Mart’s!” Olga reiterated hysterically.

“They lead into your son’s room, Mrs. Brenner.  And we find your axe not far from your door, just where the path starts for the hill.”  Munn’s eyes were grave.