M. Fournier shook his head. "No. I tried to believe that myself at first; but I never did believe it, and I thought and thought and thought--Tenez, look!" He drew a piece of blank paper from one pocket, a pencil from another. The paper he spread upon his knee, the pencil he took between his teeth; then he held out his wrists.
"Now fasten them together."
Miranda uttered a cry. Her face grew very white. "What with?" she asked.
"Your belt."
She unclasped her belt from her waist and strapped Fournier's wrists together.
"Tighter," said he, "tighter. Now see!"
With great difficulty and labour he copied out Warriner's message on the blank paper; and while he wrote Miranda saw the sentence wavering up and down, the small letters coming out clear and small, the long strokes and tails straggling. She seized the copy almost before he had finished, and held it side by side with the original. There was a difference, of course, the difference which stamped one man's hand as Warriner's and the other as Fournier's, the difference of fear, but that was the only difference. The method in each case was identical; the same difficulties had produced the same results.
"There can be no doubt, hein?" asked Fournier, as Miranda unfastened the belt.
"How did this come to you?" she returned.
"I tell you," said he, "from the beginning. Bentham--that is what M. Warriner calls himself now, Bentham--Jeremy Bentham he calls himself, because he says he's such an economist--well, he and I are partners in a little business, and we have prospered. So when Bentham came back from Bemin Sooar to Tangier a week ago, I give a dinner in my house to a few friends and we dance afterwards. Perhaps ten or eleven of us and Bentham. Bentham he came and danced and he was the last to go away. He did not stay in my house--it was better for our little business that we should not be thought more than mere friends. He had a lodging in the town, while my house was outside up the hill. He rode away alone on a mule, for he was in evening dress and one cannot walk across the Sôk in dancing shoes, and he never reached his lodging. He disappeared. I heard no word of him, until yesterday; yesterday about mid-day, an Arab brought that scrap of paper to my shop."