d 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 y