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.

“No; that is the one thing it could not have been,” said Hanaud.  “Look round the room.  Was there ever a room better tended?  Find me a little pile of dust in any one corner if you can!  It is all as clean as a plate.  Every morning, except this one morning, this room has been swept and polished.  The paper was written and torn up yesterday.”

He enclosed the card in an envelope as he spoke, and placed it in his pocket.  Then he rose and crossed again to the settee.  He stood at the side of it, with his hands clutching the lapels of his coat and his face gravely troubled.  After a few moments of silence for himself, of suspense for all the others who watched him, he stooped suddenly.  Slowly, and with extraordinary care, he pushed his hands under the head-cushion and lifted it up gently, so that the indentations of its surface might not be disarranged.  He carried it over to the light of the open window.  The cushion was covered with silk, and as he held it to the sunlight all could see a small brown stain.

Hanaud took his magnifying-glass from his pocket and bent his head over the cushion.  But at that moment, careful though he had been, the down swelled up within the cushion, the folds and indentations disappeared, the silk covering was stretched smooth.

“Oh!” cried Besnard tragically.  “What have you done?”