He greeted me with a look of delight and a rush of confused gestures.
"See, sir; oh, see! How I wish Mr. Gryce were here! Look at the top of that key, sir—the one with the words, 'Shift key' on it. Yes, that one; that! What is the matter with it? Tell me."
"The face of it is obscured. I can scarcely read the words. There is something on it. Something like——"
"Paste!" he cried. "The paste that ran out of the bottle and spread over the desk. You can still see unmistakable signs of it here and here" (pointing rapidly as he spoke), "for Mr. Gryce would not allow a woman in the room, and nothing has been cleaned since that night. The paste is but a dry crust now, but you must remember that it was moist when Mr. Gillespie stooped over the table, so that when his fingers got into it in his struggle to reach the typewriter, he readily transferred it to the keys. This will be apparent to you if you will scrutinise the exact keys he made use of in writing those last five words. Observe the one marked e; now this n, and now the o. There is but a trace of paste on some of them; but it is thick on the e, and thicker still on—what key, sir?"
"The one you first drew my attention to; the one marked 'Shift key.'"
"Just so. Now, do you know the use of the 'Shift key?'"
"I do not."
"You press it down when you wish the letter you are writing to be a capital. For instance, I wish to write the capital I. I hold down this 'Shift key' with one finger and strike the key marked i with another."
"Oh, I know what you are going to say: 'No capital appears in the five words we are now considering.' True, sir, but does not this paste on the 'Shift key' show that he made an effort to write one; that a capital was in his mind even if it did not get on paper? In beginning any communication, one naturally starts with a capital, and you see, sir, that the space between this last hurriedly added phrase and the words of his unfinished letter is long enough to hold one. But the haste and agitation of this dying man were such that he did not put enough force into his stroke to bring an impression of this opening capital. If, therefore, we would read this communication intelligently, it is imperative upon us to supply this missing capital. Now, what letter do you think he meant to write there and did not?"