"A foreigner?" Anstice was genuinely surprised. "I say, what makes you think that? The writing is not foreign."
"No. You are right there inasmuch as the regulation writing of a foreigner, French, Italian, Spanish, is fine and pointed in character, while this is more round, more sprawling and clumsy. But"--he frowned thoughtfully, and Anstice thought he looked more like Sherlock Holmes than ever--"there is one point in connection with this last letter which has evidently not struck you. Suppose you read it through carefully once more, and see if you can discover something in it which appears a trifle un-English, so to speak."
Anstice took the second letter as desired, and read it through carefully, while Clive watched him with an interest which was not feigned. Although Anstice had no suspicion of the fact, Clive, who had travelled in India, had in the light of that letter identified his visitor directly with the central figure in that bygone tragedy in Alostan; and although, owing to his absence from England, Clive had not been one of the experts consulted in the Carstairs case, it was not hard for him to place the first letter as belonging to that notorious series of anonymous scrawls which had roused so much interest in the Press a couple of years before this date.
Just where the connection between the two cases came Clive could not discover, but he had always felt a curiously strong sympathy with the unknown man who had carried out a woman's wish just ten minutes too soon, and he would willingly have helped Anstice to solve this problem if he could have seen his way to find the solution.
Presently Anstice looked up rather apologetically.
"I'm awfully stupid, but I don't see what you mean about a foreigner...."
Clive smiled.
"Don't you? Well, I'll explain. And after all I may be wrong, you know. However, here goes." He bent down again and pointed to the word India, which for some reason was set in inverted commas. "Don't you notice any peculiarities about these commas? Think of the usual manner in which an English writer uses them--and note the difference here."
Anstice studied the word with suddenly keen attention, and instantly noted the peculiarity of which Clive had spoken.
"The first double comma, so to speak, is set below the line, and the other one above. But English writers and printers use both above the line. Isn't that so?"
"Yes. Whereas in the majority of French or Italian printing the commas are set as they are here--a trick which, to my mind, points to the strong probability, at least, of the writer of this letter being a foreigner of sorts."