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Page 99
"Exactly, your lordship," said Ashe. "My theory, if I may--"
"Yes?"
"My theory, your lordship, is that Mr. Baxter was deceived by the
light-and-shade effects on the toe of the shoe. The morning sun,
streaming in through the window, must have shone on the shoe in
such a manner as to give it a momentary and fictitious aspect of
redness. If Mr. Baxter recollects, he did not look long at the
shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye consequently had not
time to fade. I myself remember thinking at the moment that the
shoe appeared to have a certain reddish tint. The mistake--"
"Bah!" said Baxter shortly.
Lord Emsworth, now thoroughly bored with the whole affair and
desiring nothing more than to be left alone with his weeds and
his garden fork, put in his word. Baxter, he felt, was curiously
irritating these days. He always seemed to be bobbing up. The
Earl of Emsworth was conscious of a strong desire to be free from
his secretary's company. He was efficient, yes--invaluable
indeed--he did not know what he should do without Baxter; but
there was no denying that his company tended after a while to
become a trifle tedious. He took a fresh grip on his garden fork
and shifted it about in the air as a hint that the interview had
lasted long enough.
"It seems to me, my dear fellow," he said, "the only explanation
that will square with the facts. A shoe that is really smeared
with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of a
few minutes."
"You are very right, your lordship," said Ashe approvingly. "May
I go now, your lordship?"
"Certainly--certainly; by all means."
"Shall I take the shoe with me, your lordship?"
"If you do not want it, Baxter."
The secretary passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Ashe
without a word; and the latter, having included both gentlemen in
a kindly smile, left the garden.
On returning to the butler's room, Ashe's first act was to remove
a shoe from the top of the pile in the basket. He was about to
leave the room with it, when the sound of footsteps in the
passage outside halted him.
"I do not in the least understand why you wish me to come here,
my dear Baxter," said a voice, "and you are completely spoiling
my morning, but--"
For a moment Ashe was at a loss. It was a crisis that called for
swift action, and it was a little hard to know exactly what to
do. It had been his intention to carry the paint-splashed shoe
back to his own room, there to clean it at his leisure; but it
appeared that his strategic line of retreat was blocked. Plainly,
the possibility--nay, the certainty--that Ashe had substituted
another shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint
on it had occurred to the Efficient Baxter almost directly the
former had left the garden.
The window was open. Ashe looked out. There were bushes below.
It was a makeshift policy, and one which did not commend itself
to him as the ideal method, but it seemed the only thing to be
done, for already the footsteps had reached the door. He threw
the shoe out of window, and it sank beneath the friendly surface
of the long grass round a wisteria bush.
Ashe turned, relieved, and the next moment the door opened and
Baxter walked in, accompanied--with obvious reluctance---by his
bored employer.
Baxter was brisk and peremptory.
"I wish to look at those shoes again," he said coldly.
"Certainly, sir," said Ashe.
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