Tracks in the Snow by Godfrey R. Benson — Read

I was up early on the 29th. Snow lay thick on the ground but had ceased falling, and it was freezing hard, when, while waiting for breakfast, I walked out as far as my gate on the village street to see what the weather was like. Suddenly Peters' housemaid came running down to the village on her way, as it proved, to the police-station. Before passing she paused, and breathlessly told me the news. I walked quickly to Peters' house. Several neighbours were already gathering about the gate of the drive but did not enter. I rang the bell, was admitted by the housekeeper and walked straight up to Peters' bedroom. Callaghan and Vane-Cartwright were there already, the former half-dressed, unshaved and haggard-looking, the latter a neat figure in bedroom slippers and a dressing-gown. We had only exchanged a few words when the police-sergeant entered, followed a minute or two later by a tall and pleasant-faced young constable, who brought with him the village doctor, an ambitious, up-to-date youth who had lately come to those parts.

I have some little difficulty in saying what I then observed; for indeed, though I looked intently enough on the dead face and figure, and noticed much about them that is not to my present purpose, I took in for myself very little that bore on that problem of detection which has since interested me so much. I cannot now distinguish the things which I really saw upon hearing the others mention them from the things which I imagine myself seeing because I knew they were mentioned then or later. In fact I saw chiefly with the eyes of the Sergeant, who set about his inquiries with a quiet promptitude that surprised me in one whom I knew only as a burly, steady, slow-speaking, heavy member of the force.