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.

"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 und