Again the detective opened his lips and might have spoken, but
Sweetwater gave him no chance.
"Where is the letter he was writing?" he demanded. "Have any of you seen any paper lying about here?"
"He was not writing," objected Knapp; "he was reading; reading in that old Bible you see there."
Sweetwater caught up the book, looked it over, and laid it down, with that same curious twinkle of his eye they had noted in him before.
"He was writing," he insisted. "See, here is his pencil." And he showed them the battered end of a small lead-pencil lying on the edge of his chair.
"Writing at some time," admitted Knapp.
"Writing just before the deed," insisted Sweetwater. "Look at the fingers of his right hand. They have not moved since the pencil fell out of them."
"The letter, or whatever it was, shall be looked for," declared the constable.
Sweetwater bowed, his eyes roving restlessly into every nook and corner of the room.
"James was the stronger of the two," he remarked; "yet there is no evidence that he made any attempt at suicide."