“As we are to meet with Mr. Thrace on the morrow, Jane, perhaps you could ascertain more narrowly where the rubies were hidden,” Henry suggested with devilry in his eye. “I should not like all Mamma’s work to be wasted; and, too, there is the trouble of thieves in the neighbourhood. What if they should come again by night, and profit from our labour?”

“Mamma may hit them stoutly over the head with her shovel, and so make an end to the business,” I replied. Scarcely had these words been spoken than we heard a knock upon the outer door, and having failed to discern the approach of a visitor over the clamour of our own conversation, were at a loss to name the caller. I waited for Sally to answer the summons, while Cassandra said with obvious satisfaction, “That will be Neddie perhaps. He was to dine in Alton with Mr. Middleton, I believe, and will have escorted his tenant home.”

“Seems a foolish thing to do,” Henry observed, “when he might be comfortable with the port to be found in Barlow’s cellars.”

Mr. Prowting appeared in the dining-parlour doorway. Behind him, hat in hand, stood Mr. Jack Hinton.

“Good evening, Mrs. Austen. I must beg your sincere pardon for incommoding you at this hour,” the magistrate said, “but I am come on a matter of some urgency. May I beg leave once again to enter your cellar?”

“Of course, my dear Mr. Prowting. Of course. You have a particular point to ascertain regarding that foul murder, I must suppose.” My mother’s countenance was alive with interest; but Mr. Prowting did not explicate his business, and never should she have conjectured the true object of his urgency. “What a delightful surprise to see you again, Mr. Hinton! Had I known we were to have such a party, I should have invited you all to take pot-luck with us!”

The clergyman’s son stiffly bowed, and murmured some politeness. He should probably disdain to dine at so unfashionable an hour, and was as yet arrayed in his morning dress.

“I do not think you know my eldest daughter—” my mother began, when Mr. Prowting broke in abruptly.

“As I said, ma’am — it is a matter of some urgency.”

“Very well. Henry shall be happy to accompany you below.”

My brother had already laid down his napkin and made for the door.

At such a moment, I was not about to be confined abovestairs with the women, and silently went to request a candle of Sally. She stood by while the little troupe crossed her kitchen to the narrow stairs, her eyes round as buttons. Imagining, no doubt, that there was yet another corpse beneath her feet.

“A lanthorn, I think, Miss Austen — if you have not an oil lamp you may spare,” the magistrate suggested. I exchanged the candle for a lanthorn, at which Mr. Prowting gestured me politely down the stairs. With a stiff nod, he then herded Mr. Hinton before him. The gentleman was exceedingly pale, his eyes sparkling with an unnatural brilliancy, as tho’ at any moment he might succumb to a fit. Henry brought up the rear, his gaze acutely trained on Mr. Hinton. I had not neglected to relate the whole of Catherine Prowting’s story while my brother accompanied me home from Alton; and at the conclusion of it, Henry had declared that he would not be gone to London on the morrow for worlds.

Our ill-assorted pilgrimage came to a halt at the foot of the stairs.

“Mr. Austen,” the magistrate said heavily, “I must apologise again for the intrusion. There is no help for it. I have heard today such an account of the night in question — Saturday last, when Shafto French undoubtedly met his death — as must give rise to the gravest concerns and trouble. It is a weight, Mr. Austen, upon me — a weight I alone must bear. Mr. Hinton now stands accused of French’s murder.”

“That is a lie,” the gentleman retorted coldly, “as I have reiterated this half hour or more.”

“I am afraid, sir, that in so serious an affair as murder, I must subject you to certain proofs.”

“But I have told you I did not harm the man!” Hinton cried.

“Does my word mean so little, Mr. Prowting?”

The magistrate stared at him from under lowering brows. “I must beg you to step over to the corner of the cellar. Mr. Austen, you are my witness as to what is about to pass.”

Mr. Hinton swallowed convulsively, his right hand rising to the knot of his ornate cravat. Of a sudden, he appeared to me a small, ill-natured boy of a kind too often hounded in his lessons; the sort of raw cub who should mishandle his mounts and be thrown at every hedge. A coward, parading as a man of Fashion; a fool who should attempt to get by intrigue what he could not command from merit. A paltry, unfortunate, and ill-bred whelp, who should always labour under the severest conviction of ill-usage at the hands of his neighbours, resenting and envying the world by turns.

“Miss Austen, would you raise your lanthorn?”

At the arcing beam of light there was a scuttle of rats, grown by now to seem a commonplace. Link, I thought; but the terrier’s work must be forestalled at least another hour, until Mr. Prowting had seen the marks on the floor undisturbed by ravaging paws. We moved carefully towards the corner, an executioner’s lockstep honour guard, until the magistrate held up his hand.

“And now, sir — if you would be so good as to press your foot into the dust at exactly this place.”

“What?” Hinton exclaimed. “Are you mad ?”

“Pray do as I request, sir — or I shall have no alternative, I am afraid, but to abandon you to the Law.”

“I shall do no such thing!” Hinton protested. “It is absurd!

The affronteries to which I have been subjected this evening—”

“For God’s sake, man, do as I say!” Mr. Prowting burst out. The gentleman glanced at Henry, but found no support; and then, with an expression of grimmest necessity, lifted his boot and pressed it into the dirt.

I sank down with the lanthorn, so that the light illuminated the cellar floor distinctly; and discerned the outline of Mr. Hinton’s boot fresh on the floor. The footprint my brother and I had detected previously could still be seen, a ghost of the present one. To the naked eye, it appeared that the boot prints matched in every particular.

“Mr. Hinton, pray explain your movements on the night of the first of July,” Mr. Prowting demanded in a dreadful voice.

“I was from home and from Chawton,” the clergyman’s son returned defiantly, “having ridden out that morning to meet a party of friends near Box Hill, where a prize-fight was to be held. I did not return until quite late. Any of my friends will say the same.”

“Do you have an idea of the time?”

“—The time I reached home?”

“Was it before or after midnight?”

Hinton’s gaze wavered somewhat, as tho’ he began to understand his danger. “I cannot undertake to say.”

“Would it interest you to know that you were seen to dismount your horse near Chawton Pond at perhaps a quarterhour or twenty minutes past midnight, early on Sunday morning last, and to take up the body of a man you found there — a man, I would put it to you, Mr. Hinton, whom you had left there for dead some minutes before—”

“Mr. Prowting!” the gentleman cried. “You forget yourself, sir! If you will credit the silly imaginings of a goosecap girl—”

“Sir,” Mr. Prowting seethed, “it is you who forget yourself!

Observe the footprints! Can you deny that it is your boot?”

“I do not deny it.” Hinton’s lip positively curled. “You made certain you were provided with witnesses. But any boot may be much like another. The similarity in these marks can mean nothing to a man of reason.”

“Can it not?” The magistrate looked to be on the point of apoplexy. “Who is your bootmaker, sir?”

There was a pause before Hinton replied.

“I hardly know. As I said — one boot is much like another.”

“But not yours,” Henry interposed softly. He, too, was crouching now near the lanthorn’s beam, his eyes trained upon Mr. Hinton’s footwear. “These Hessians look to be of Hoby’s make, I should say, and are quite dear.[20] From the wear that can be observed on toe and heel, I should judge that you ordered them fully a twelvemonth ago, and shall probably have them replaced during a visit to Town in the autumn or winter; indeed, such an economical practise may long have been your habit. It is not every man who can afford to patronise Hoby — and only gentlemen possessed of the most exacting tastes. There cannot be another such pair of boots within twenty miles of Chawton, Mr. Hinton. I expect Hoby will have your measurements to account, and will be happy to provide them to the magistrate.”