He was right.  One of the tracks betrayed a small, coquettish, slender foot, clad in an elegant high-heeled boot with a narrow sole and an arched instep.  The other denoted a broad, short foot growing wider toward the end.  It had evidently been incased in a strong, low shoe.

This was indeed a clue.  Lecoq’s hopes at once revived; so eagerly does a man welcome any supposition that is in accordance with his desires.  Trembling with anxiety, he went to examine some other footprints a short distance from these; and an excited exclamation at once escaped his lips.

“What is it?” eagerly inquired the other agent:  “what do you see?”

“Come and look for yourself, see there!” cried Lecoq.

The old man bent down, and his surprise was so great that he almost dropped the lantern.  “Oh!” said he in a stifled voice, “a man’s footprint!”

“Exactly.  And this fellow wore the finest of boots.  See that imprint, how clear, how neat it is!”

Worthy Father Absinthe was scratching his ear furiously, his usual method of quickening his rather slow wits.  “But it seems to me,” he ventured to say at last, “that this individual was not coming from this ill-fated hovel.”

“Of course not; the direction of the foot tells you that.  No, he was not going away, he was coming here.  But he did not pass beyond the spot where we are now standing.  He was standing on tiptoe with outstretched neck and listening ears, when, on reaching this spot, he heard some noise, fear seized him, and he fled.”

“Or rather, the women were going out as he was coming, and—­”

“No, the women were outside the garden when he entered it.”

This assertion seemed far too audacious to suit Lecoq’s companion, who remarked:  “One can not be sure of that.”

“I am sure of it, however; and can prove it conclusively.  If you doubt it, it is because your eyes are growing old.  Bring your lantern a little nearer—­yes, here it is—­our man placed his large foot upon one of the marks made by the woman with the small foot and almost effaced it.”  This unexceptionable piece of circumstantial evidence stupefied the old police agent.

“Now,” continued Lecoq, “could this man have been the accomplice whom the murderer was expecting?  Might it not have been some strolling vagrant whose attention was attracted by the two pistol shots?  This is what we must ascertain.  And we will ascertain it.  Come!”

A wooden fence of lattice-work, rather more than three feet high, was all that separated the Widow Chupin’s garden from the waste land surrounding it.  When Lecoq made the circuit of the house to cut off the murderer’s escape he had encountered this obstacle, and, fearing lest he should arrive too late, he had leaped the fence to the great detriment of his pantaloons, without even asking himself if there was a gate or not.  There was one, however—­a light gate of lattice-work similar to the fence, turning upon iron hinges, and closed by a wooden button.  Now it was straight toward this gate that these footprints in the snow led the two police agents.  Some now thought must have struck the younger man, for he suddenly paused.  “Ah!” he murmured, “these two women did not come to the Poivriere this evening for the first time.”