“Soft felt indeed! The barbarians!” murmured Lafcadio.
Julius raised his nose from the paper:
“What are you so astonished at?”
“Nothing! Nothing! Go on!”
“...soft felt hat much too large for his head and which presumably belongs to the aggressor; the maker’s name has been carefully removed from the lining, out of which a piece of leather has been cut of the size and shape of a laurel leaf....”
Lafcadio got up and went behind Julius’s chair so as to read the paper over his shoulder—and perhaps, too, so as to hide his paleness. There could no longer be any doubt about it; his crime had been tampered with; someone else had touched it up; had cut the piece out of the lining—the unknown person, no doubt, who had carried off his portmanteau.
In the meantime Julius went on reading:
“...which seems to prove the crime was premeditated. [Why this particular crime? My hero had perhaps merely taken general precautions just at random....] As soon as the police had made the necessary notes, the body was removed to Naples for the purposes of identification. [Yes, I know they have the means there—and the habit of preserving dead bodies....]”
“Are you quite sure it was he?” Lafcadio’s voice trembled a little.
“Bless my soul! I was expecting him to dinner this evening.”