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Words: 74666 in 47 pages
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ernal feminine,' as you writers put it, is ever present. She is in this one somewhere, you may depend upon it."
I did not answer him, judging that he merely emitted these sentiments in order to impress his listening subordinates with a due sense of his superior knowledge. But the search went on.
From the footpath across the grass to the seat was about thirty feet, and over the whole area all of us made diligent investigation. In one of the patches where the sand was bare of herbage I found the print of a woman's shoe--a smart little shoe--size 3, I judged it to be. The sole was well shaped and pointed, the heel was of the latest fashionable model--rather American than French.
I at once pointed it out to Frayne, but though he had so strongly expressed the opinion that there was a woman in the case, he dismissed it with a glance.
"Some woman came here yesterday evening with her sweetheart, I suppose," he said with a laugh.
But to me that footprint was distinctly instructive, for among the many impressed on the sand before the seat, I had not detected one that bore any resemblance to it. The owner of that American shoe had walked from the path to the back of the seat, but had certainly not sat down there.
I carefully marked the spot, and telling an old fisherman of my acquaintance, who stood by, to allow no one to obliterate it, continued my investigations.
Three feet behind the seat, in the midst of the trodden grass, I came upon two hairpins lying close together. Picking them up, I found they were rather thick, crinkled in the middle, and both of the same pale bronze shade.
Was it possible there had been a struggle there--a struggle with the woman who wore those American shoes--who was, moreover, a fair woman, if those pins had fallen from her hair in the encounter?
I showed the hairpins to Frayne who was busy taking a measurement of the distance from the seat to where the body had been found.
To my surprise, he seemed impatient and annoyed.
"My dear Mr. Vidal," he exclaimed, "you novelists are, I fear, far too imaginative. I dare say there are hundreds of hairpins about here in the grass if we choose to search for them. This seat is a popular resort for visitors by day and a trysting place for lovers after sundown. In the vicinity of any such seat you will always find hairpins, cigarette ends, wrappings from chocolates, and tinfoil. Look around you and see."
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