“The two young Fosters. It’s plain as it can be — and a most revolting crime too, bad as Sneathy may have been. They came down from London to-day and went out deliberately to it, it’s clear. They were heard talking of it, asked as to the direction in which he had gone, and followed him — and with a rope.”
“Isn’t that rather an unusual form of murder — hanging?” Hewitt remarked.
“Perhaps it is,” Mr. Hardwick replied; “but it’s the case here plain enough. It seems, in fact, that they had a way of threatening to hang him and even to cut off his hand if he used it to strike their mother. So that they appear to have carried out what might have seemed mere idle threats in a diabolically savage way. Of course they may have strangled him first and hanged him after, by way of carrying out their threat and venting their spite on the mutilated body. But that they did it is plain enough for me. I’ve spent an hour or two over it, and feel I am certainly more than justified in ordering their apprehension. Indeed, they were with him at the time, as I have found by their tracks on the footpath through the wood.”
The Colonel turned to Martin Hewitt. “Mr. Hardwick, you must know,” he said, “is by way of being an amateur in your particular line — and a very good amateur, too, I should say, judging by a case or two I have known in this county.”
Hewitt bowed, and laughingly expressed a fear lest Mr. Hardwick should come to London and supplant him altogether. “ This seems a curious case,” he added. “If you don’t mind, I think I should like to take a glance at the tracks and whatever other traces there may be, just by way of keeping my hand in.”
“Certainly,” Mr. Hardwick replied, brightening. “I should of all things like to have Mr. Hewitt’s opinions on the observations I have made — just for my own gratification. As to his opinion — there can be no room for doubt; the thing is plain.”
With many promises not to be late for dinner, we left my uncle and walked with Mr. Hardwick in the direction of Ratherby Wood. It was an unfrequented part, he told us, and by particular care he had managed, he hoped, to prevent the rumour spreading to the village yet, so that we might hope to find the trails not yet overlaid. It was a man of his own, he said, who, making a short cut through the wood, had come upon the body hanging, and had run immediately to inform him. With this man he had gone back, cut down the body, and made his observations. He had followed the trail backward to Ranworth, and there had found the new coachman, who had once been in his own service. From him he had learned the doings of the brothers Foster as they left the place, and from him he had ascertained that they had not then returned. Then, leaving his man by the body, he had come straight to my uncle’s.
Presently we came on the footpath leading from Ranworth across the field to Ratherby Wood. It was a mere trail of bare earth worn by successive feet amid the grass. It was damp, and we all stooped and examined the footmarks that were to be seen on it. They all pointed one way — towards the wood in the distance.
“Fortunately it’s not a greatly frequented path,” Mr. Hardwick — said. “You see, there are the marks of three pairs of feet only, and as first Sneathy and then both of the brothers came this way, these footmarks must be theirs. Which are Sneathy’s is plain — they are these large flat ones. If you notice, they are all distinctly visible in the centre of the track, showing plainly that they belong to the man who walked alone, which was Sneathy. Of the others, the marks of the outside feet — the left on the left side and the right on the right — are often not visible. Clearly they belong to two men walking side by side, and more often than not treading, with their outer feet, on the grass at the side. And where these happen to drop on the same spot as the marks in the middle they cover them. Plainly they are the footmarks of Henry and Robert Foster, made as they followed Sneathy. Don’t you agree with me Mr. Hewitt?”
“Oh yes, that’s very plain. You have a better pair of eyes than most people, Mr. Hardwick, and a good idea of using them, too. We will go into the wood now. As a matter of fact I can pretty clearly distinguish most of the other foot-marks — those on the grass; but that’s a matter of much training.”
We followed the footpath, keeping on the grass at its side, in case it should be desirable to refer again to the foot-tracks. For some little distance into the wood the tracks continued as before, those of the brothers overlaying those of Sneathy. Then there was a difference. The path here was broader and muddy, because of the proximity of trees, and suddenly the outer footprints separated, and no more overlay the larger ones in the centre, but proceeded at an equal distance on either side of them.
“See there,” cried Mr. Hardwick, pointing triumphantly to the spot, “this is where they overtook him, and walked on either side. The body was found only a little farther on — you could see the place now if the path didn’t zigzag about so.”
Hewitt said nothing, but stooped and examined the tracks at the sides with great care and evident thought, spanning the distances between them comparatively with his arms. Then he rose and stepped lightly from one mark to another, taking care not to tread on the mark itself. “Very good,” he said shortly on finishing his examination. “We’ll go on.”
We went on, and presently came to the place where the body lay. Here the ground sloped from the left down towards the right, and a tiny streamlet, a mere trickle of a foot or two wide, ran across the path. In rainy seasons it was probably wider, for all the earth and clay had been washed away for some feet on each side, leaving fiat, bare and very coarse gravel, on which the trail was lost. Just beyond this, and to the left, the body lay on a grassy knoll under the limb of a tree, from which still depended a part of the cut rope. It was not a pleasant sight. The man was a soft, fleshy creature, probably rather under than over the medium height, and he lay there, with his stretched neck and protruding tongue, a revolting object. His right arm lay by his side, and the stump of the wrist was clotted with black blood. Mr. Hardwick’s man was still in charge, seemingly little pleased with his job, and a few yards off stood a couple of countrymen looking on.
Hewitt asked from which direction these men had come, and having ascertained and noticed their footmarks, he asked them to stay exactly where they were, to avoid confusing such other tracks as might be seen. Then he addressed himself to his examination. “First,” he said, glancing up at the branch, that was scarce a yard above his head, “this rope has been here for some time.”
“Yes,” Mr. Hardwick replied, “it’s an old swing rope. Some children used it in the summer, but it got partly cut away, and the odd couple of yards has been hanging since.”
“Ah,” said Hewitt, “then if the Fosters did this they were saved some trouble by the chance, and were able to take their halter back with them — and so avoid one chance of detection.” He very closely scrutinised the top of a tree stump, probably the relic of a tree that had been cut down long before, and then addressed himself to the body.
“When you cut it down,” he said, “did it fall in a heap?”
“No, my man eased it down to some extent.”
“Not on to its face?”
“Oh no. On to its back, just as it is now.” Mr Hardwick saw that Hewitt was looking at muddy marks on each of the corpse’s knees, to one of which a small leaf clung, and at one or two other marks of the same sort on the fore part of the dress. “That seems to show pretty plainly,” he said, “that he must have struggled with them and was thrown forward, doesn’t it?”
Hewitt did not reply, but gingerly lifted the right arm by its sleeve. “Is either of the brothers Foster left-handed?” he asked.
“No, I think not. Here, Bennett, you have seen plenty of their doings — cricket, shooting, and so on — do you remember if either is left-handed?”
“Nayther, sir,” Mr. Hardwick’s man answered. “Both on ’em’s right-handed.”
Hewitt lifted the lapel of the coat and attentively regarded a small rent in it. The dead man’s hat lay near, and after a few