importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you have a quick eye for
color. Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate
yourself upon details. My first glance is always at a woman's sleeve. In a
man it is perhaps better first to take the knee of the trouser. As you
observe, this woman had plush upon her sleeve, which is a most useful
material for showing traces. The double line a little above the wrist,
where the typewritist presses against the table, was beautifully defined.
The sewing machine, of the hand type, leaves a similar mark, but only on
the left arm, and on the side of it farthest from the thumb, instead of
being right across the broadest part, as this was. I then glanced at her
face, and observing the dint of a _pince-nez_ at either side of her nose,
I ventured a remark upon short sight and typewriting, which seemed to
surprise her."

"It surprised me."

"But, surely, it was very obvious. I was then much surprised and
interested on glancing down to observe that, though the boots which she
was wearing were not unlike each other, they were really odd ones, the one
having a slightly decorated toe cap and the other a plain one. One was
buttoned only in the two lower buttons out of five, and the other at the
first, third, and fifth. Now, when you see that a young lady, otherwise
neatly dressed, has come away from home with odd boots, half-buttoned, it
is no great deduction to say that she came away in a hurry."

"And what else?" I asked, keenly interested, as I always was, by my
friend's incisive reasoning.

"I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving home, but
after being fully dressed. You observed that her right glove was torn at