track. Those footprints were made by galoshes, and there's no telling how much bigger they were than the guy's foot. They mighta been worn over a shoe anywheres from a size eight to a size ten, and with a width anywheres from an A to a D."
Heath nodded with obvious disappointment.
"You're sure about 'em being galoshes?" He was reluctant to let what promised to be a valuable clew slip away.
"You can't get around it. The rubber tread was distinct in several places, and the shallow, scooped heel stood out plain as day. Anyhow, I got Jerym[1] to check up on my findings."
Snitkin's gaze wandered idly to the floor of the clothes-closet.
"Those are the kind of things that made the tracks." He pointed to a pair of high arctics which had been thrown carelessly under a boot-shelf. Then he leaned over and picked up one of them. As his eye rested on it he gave a grunt. "This looks like the size, too." He took the pattern from the Sergeant's hand and laid it on the sole of the overshoe. It fitted as perfectly as if the two had been cut simultaneously.
Heath was startled out of his depression.
"Now, what in hell does that mean!"
Markham had drawn near.
- ↑ Captain Anthony P. Jerym was one of the shrewdest and most painstaking criminologists of the New York Police Departmen. Though he had begun his career as an expert in the Bertillon system of measurements, he had later specialized in footprints—a subject which he had helped to elevate to an elaborate and complicated science. He had spent several years in Vienna studying Austrian methods, and had developed a means of scientific photography for footprints which gave him rank with such men as Londe, Burais, and Reiss.
