“I’m free, then, to go ahead?”
“Of course with reasonable limits. But ask my advice before you make any accusations—or do anything rash.”
By previous arrangement Mrs. Gentry, the housekeeper, was waiting for me on the upper floor. There could be no better chance to search the guests’ rooms. All of the men were on the lower floor, smoking their after-dinner cigars and talking in little groups in the lounging-room and the veranda. Of course Nealman was in his room, but even had he been absent, a decent sense of restraint would have kept me from his threshold. And of course Marten and Van Hope had established perfect alibis at the inquest.
We entered Fargo’s room first. It was cluttered with his bags, his guns and rods, but the thing I was seeking did not reveal itself. I looked in the inner pockets of his coat, in the drawers of his desk, even in the waste-paper basket without result. Such personal documents as Fargo had with him were evidently on his person at that moment.
Nopp’s room was next, but I was less than twenty seconds across his threshold. He had been writing a letter, it lay open on his desk, and I needed to glance but once at the script. If my theory was right Nopp could be permanently dropped from the list of suspects of Florey’s murder.
But the next room yielded a clew of seemingly inestimable importance. After the drawers had been opened and searched, and the desk examined with minute care, I searched the inner pocket of a white linen coat that the occupant of the room had worn at the time of his arrival. In it I found a letter, addressed to some New York firm, sealed, stamped, and ready to send.
How familiar was the bold, free hand in which the address was written! Not a little excited, I compared it with the script of the “George” letter I had taken from Florey’s room. As far as my inexperienced eye could tell the handwriting was identical.
The room was that of Lucius Pescini. If I had not been mistaken in the handwriting, I had proven a previous relationship and acquaintance, extending practically over the whole lifetime of both men, between the distinguished, bearded man that came as Nealman’s guest and the gray butler who had died on the lagoon shore the previous night.
I put the letter back in the man’s coat-pocket; then joined Mrs. Gentry in the hall. She went to her own room. I turned down the broad stairs to the hall. And the question before me now was whether to report my discovery to the officials of the law.
I had started down the stairs with the intention of telling them all I knew. By the time I had reached the hall I had begun to have serious doubts as to the wisdom of such a course. After all I had learned nothing conclusive. Handwriting evidence is at best uncertain; even experts have made mistakes in comparing signatures. In this regard it was quite different from finger-prints—those tell-tale stains that never lie. True, the handwriting looked identical to the naked eye, but a microscope might prove it entirely dissimilar. Was I to cast suspicion on a distinguished man on such fragile and uncertain grounds?