There was a rack for note-paper upon the table, and from it he
took a stiff card.
"Get me some gum or paste, and quickly," he said. His voice had
become brusque, the politeness had gone from his address. He
carried the card and the fragments of paper to the round table.
There he sat down and, with infinite patience, gummed the
fragments on to the card, fitting them together like the pieces of
a Chinese puzzle.
The others over his shoulders could see spaced words, written in
pencil, taking shape as a sentence upon the card. Hanaud turned
abruptly in his seat toward Wethermill.
"You have, no doubt, a letter written by Mlle. Celie?"
Wethermill took his letter-case from his pocket and a letter out
of the case. He hesitated for a moment as he glanced over what was
written. The four sheets were covered. He folded back the letter,
so that only the two inner sheets were visible, and handed it to
Hanaud. Hanaud compared it with the handwriting upon the card.
"Look!" he said at length, and the three men gathered behind him.
On the card the gummed fragments of paper revealed a sentence: "Je ne sais pas."
"'I do not know,'" said Ricardo; "now this is very important."
Beside the card Celia's letter to Wethermill was laid.
"What do you think?" asked Hanaud.
Besnard, the Commissaire of Police, bent over Hanaud's shoulder.
"There are strong resemblances," he said guardedly.
Ricardo was on the look-out for deep mysteries. Resemblances were
not enough for him; they were inadequate to the artistic needs of
the situation.
"Both were written by the same hand," he said definitely; "only in
the sentence written upon the card the handwriting is carefully
disguised."
"Ah!" said the Commissaire, bending forward again. "Here is an
idea! Yes, yes, there are strong differences."
Ricardo looked triumphant.
"Yes, there are differences," said Hanaud. "Look how long the up
stroke of the 'p' is, how it wavers! See how suddenly this 's'
straggles off, as though some emotion made the hand shake. Yet
this," and touching Wethermill's letter he smiled ruefully, "this
is where the emotion should have affected the pen." He looked up
at Wethermill's face and then said quietly: "You have given us no opinion, monsieur. Yet your opinion should
be the most valuable of all. Were these two papers written by the
same hand?"
"I do not know," answered Wethermill.
"And I, too," cried Hanaud, in a sudden exasperation, "je ne sais
pas. I do not know. It may be her hand carelessly counterfeited.
It may be her hand disguised. It may be simply that she wrote in a
hurry with her gloves on."
"It may have been written some time ago," said Mr. Ricardo,
encouraged by his success to another suggestion.