There were just three impressions; and, whereas the blurred marks were at the side, these three pointed straight from the middle of the glass doors to the drive.  They were quite clearly defined, and all three were the impressions made by a woman’s small, arched, high-heeled shoe.  The position of the marks was at first sight a little peculiar.  There was one a good yard from the window, the impression of the right foot, and the pressure of the sole of the shoe was more marked than that of the heel.  The second, the impression of the left foot, was not quite so far from the first as the first was from the window, and here again the heel was the more lightly defined.  But there was this difference—­the mark of the toe, which was pointed in the first instance, was, in this, broader and a trifle blurred.  Close beside it the right foot was again visible; only now the narrow heel was more clearly defined than the ball of the foot.  It had, indeed, sunk half an inch into the soft ground.  There were no further imprints.  Indeed, these two were not merely close together, they were close to the gravel of the drive and on the very border of the grass.

Hanaud looked at the marks thoughtfully.  Then he turned to the Commissaire.

“Are there any shoes in the house which fit those marks?”

“Yes.  We have tried the shoes of all the women—­Celie Harland, the maid, and even Mme. Dauvray.  The only ones which fit at all are those taken from Celie Harland’s bedroom.”

He called to an officer standing in the drive, and a pair of grey suede shoes were brought to him from the hall.

“See, M. Hanaud, it is a pretty little foot which made those clear impressions,” he said, with a smile; “a foot arched and slender.  Mme. Dauvray’s foot is short and square, the maid’s broad and flat.  Neither Mme. Dauvray nor Helene Vauquier could have worn these shoes.  They were lying, one here, one there, upon the floor of Celie Harland’s room, as though she had kicked them off in a hurry.  They are almost new, you see.  They have been worn once, perhaps, no more, and they fit with absolute precision into those footmarks, except just at the toe of that second one.”

Hanaud took the shoes and, kneeling down, placed them one after the other over the impressions.  To Ricardo it was extraordinary how exactly they covered up the marks and filled the indentations.

“I should say,” said the Commissaire, “that Celie Harland went away wearing a new pair of shoes made on the very same last as those.”

As those she had left carelessly lying on the floor of her room for the first person to notice, thought Ricardo!  It seemed as if the girl had gone out of her way to make the weight of evidence against her as heavy as possible.  Yet, after all, it was just through inattention to the small details, so insignificant at the red moment of crime, so terribly instructive the next day, that guilt was generally brought home.