“For sixteen years I have puzzled over those slippers. Why did Mr. Hilary Galt remove his boots, don the slippers, and prepare himself as though for some extraordinary adventure? I don’t know to this day. The slippers still haunt me. When I resigned from the Yard, I rescued them from the Black Museum and took them with me as a souvenir of my first case—an unhappy souvenir of failure. I should like to show them to you, Miss Morrow.”
“Thrilling,” said the girl.
“Annoying,” corrected Sir Frederic grimly.
Bill Rankin looked at Charlie Chan. “What’s your reaction to that case, Sergeant?” he inquired.
Chan’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Humbly begging pardon to inquire,” he said, “have you the custom, Sir Frederic, to put yourself in place of murderer?”
“It’s a good idea,” the Englishman answ
