Baxter was now in a state of great excitement.  He was hot on the scent and his brain was working like a buzz saw in an ice box.  According to his reasoning, if Aline Peters’ maid had done this thing there should be red paint in the hall marking her retreat, and possibly a faint stain on the stairs leading to the servants’ bedrooms.

He hastened from the museum and subjected the hall to a keen scrutiny.  Yes; there was red paint on the carpet.  He passed through the green-baize door and examined the stairs.  On the bottom step there was a faint but conclusive stain of crimson!

He was wondering how best to follow up this clew when he perceived Ashe coming down the stairs.  Ashe, like Baxter, and as the result of a night disturbed by anxious thoughts, had also overslept himself.

There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the trail causes the amateur—­or Watsonian—­detective to be incautious.  If Baxter had been wise he would have achieved his object—­the getting a glimpse of Joan’s shoes—­by a devious and snaky route.  As it was, zeal getting the better of prudence, he rushed straight on.  His early suspicion of Ashe had been temporarily obscured.  Whatever Ashe’s claims to be a suspect, it had not been his footprint Baxter had seen in the museum.

“Here, you!” said the Efficient Baxter excitedly.

“Sir?”

“The shoes!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I wish to see the servants’ shoes.  Where are they?”

“I expect they have them on, sir.”

“Yesterday’s shoes, man—­yesterday’s shoes.  Where are they?”

“Where are the shoes of yesteryear?” murmured Ashe.  “I should say at a venture, sir, that they would be in a large basket somewhere near the kitchen.  Our genial knife-and-shoe boy collects them, I believe, at early dawn.”

“Would they have been cleaned yet?”

“If I know the lad, sir—­no.”

“Go and bring that basket to me.  Bring it to me in this room.”

* * *

The room to which he referred was none other than the private sanctum of Mr. Beach, the butler, the door of which, standing open, showed it to be empty.  It was not Baxter’s plan, excited as he was, to risk being discovered sifting shoes in the middle of a passage in the servants’ quarters.

Ashe’s brain was working rapidly as he made for the shoe cupboard, that little den of darkness and smells, where Billy, the knife-and-shoe boy, better known in the circle in which he moved as Young Bonehead, pursued his menial tasks.  What exactly was at the back of the Efficient Baxter’s mind prompting these maneuvers he did not know; but that there was something he was certain.

He had not yet seen Joan this morning, and he did not know whether or not she had carried out her resolve of attempting to steal the scarab on the previous night; but this activity and mystery on the part of their enemy must have some sinister significance.  He gathered up the shoe basket thoughtfully.  He staggered back with it and dumped it down on the floor of Mr. Beach’s room.  The Efficient Baxter stooped eagerly over it.  Ashe, leaning against the wall, straightened the creases in his clothes and flicked disgustedly at an inky spot which the journey had transferred from the basket to his coat.