ks of muddy feet. The oil-cloth on the
stairs also bore faint footmarks, made by wet goloshes. They were
ascending the stairs, and grew fainter towards the top. There were two
more spots of candle-wax on the stairs, and one on the handrail; a burnt
end of a wax match halfway up the stairs, and another on the landing.
There were no descending footmarks, but one of the spots of wax close to
the balusters had been trodden on while warm and soft, and bore the mark
of the front of the heel of a golosh descending the stairs. The lock of
the street door had been recently oiled, as had also that of the bedroom
door, and the latter had been unlocked from outside with a bent wire,
which had made a mark on the key. Inside the room I made two further
observations. One was that the dead woman's pillow was lightly sprinkled
with sand, somewhat like silver sand, but greyer and less gritty. I
shall return to this presently.

"The other was that the candlestick on the bedside table was empty. It
was a peculiar candlestick, having a skeleton socket formed of eight
flat strips of metal. The charred wick of a burnt-out candle was at the
bottom of the socket, but a little fragment of wax on the top edge
showed that another candle had been stuck in it and had been taken out,
for otherwise that fragment would have been melted. I at once thought of
the candle-end in the hall, and when I went down again I took that end
from the tray and examined it. On it I found eight distinct marks
corresponding to the eight bars of the candlestick in the bedroom. It
had been carried in the right hand of some person, for the warm, soft
wax had taken beautifully clear impressions of a right thumb and
forefinger. I took three moulds of the candle-end in moulding wax, and
from these moulds have made this cement cast, which shows both the
fingerprints and the marks of the candlestick." He took from his box a
small white object, which he handed to the coroner.

"And what do you gather from these facts?" asked the coroner.

"I gather that at about a quarter to two on the morning of the crime, a
man (who had, on the previous day visited the house to obtain the tress
of hair and oil the locks) entered the house by means of a latchkey. We
can fix the time by the fact that it rained on that morning from
half-past one to a quarter to two, this being the only rain that has
fallen for a fortnight, and the murder was committed at about two
o'clock. The man lit a wax matc