Hanaud sat back again upon his heels.
"So! You burnt more than letters last Sunday morning," he said.
Betty was puzzled and Hanaud held out to her the fragment of paper.
"Bills too, Mademoiselle."
Betty took the fragment in her hand and shook her head over it. It was obviously the right-hand top corner of a bill. For an intriguing scrap of a printed address was visible and below a figure or two in a column.
"There must have been a bill or two mixed up with the letters," said Betty. "I don't remember it."
She handed the fragment of paper back to Hanaud, who sat and looked at it. Jim Frobisher standing just behind him read the printed ends of names and words and the figures beneath and happened to remember the very look of them, Hanaud held them so long in his hand; the top bit of name in large capital letters, the words below echelonned in smaller capitals, then the figures in the columns and all enclosed in a rough sort of triangle with the diagonal line browned and made ragged by the fire—thus—
ERON
STRUCTION
LLES
IS
========
375.05
"Well, it is of no importance luckily," said Hanaud and he tossed the scrap of paper back into the grate. "Did you notice these ashes, Monsieur Girardot, on Sunday morning?" He turned any slur the question might seem to cast upon Betty's truthfulness with an explanation.
"It is always good when it is possible to get a corroboration, Mademoiselle."