Tracks in the Snow by Godfrey R. Benson — Read

After several remands, the proceedings against Trethewy before the magistrates came to a close about the end of February. There was nothing much to note about these proceedings, which ended, as I suppose they must have ended, in his being committed for trial. The reader knows by this time pretty nearly the whole case against him. That Peters had been murdered was certain. The accused had had several altercations with the murdered man. In one of them he had expressed a wish to kill him, and he had repeated this wish to others upon the fatal night. Footprints had been found which, as the reader knows, seemed at first sight plainly indicative of his guilt. Then there was the ladder. It was undoubtedly kept, before the murder, locked up in a place of which only Trethewy had the key. That anyone could have had access to it between the murder and the discovery of the ladder was a view supported only by the uncorroborated statement of the accused that he had left the key of the pump-house that morning, when summoned to speak to the police, and had forgotten to go back for it until the next day. Lastly, the finding of the instrument case, though not very important, at any rate disposed of any improbability that Trethewy would have had such an instrument as the knife that was used.

I daresay this would have been enough to hang a man if this was all; and against this there was nothing to be set, except the immovable persistency of Trethewy and his wife from the first in the tale which they told.