I blankly shook my head. My thoughts were in a great whirl.
"There is but one," he cried, "which would make any sense; the letter N, sir, the famous letter N. Supply that letter, sir; then tell me how those words would read. You know them well, or, stay, I have them here."
And Sweetwater spread before me a copy of the letter as it appeared after Mr. Gillespie had added the five words which had moulded the whole course of the investigation up to this point.
But this was an unnecessary precaution on his part. I knew the words by heart, and already had prefixed to them the capital N which he had just convinced me belonged there, as witness:
"one of my sons he"
"None of my sons he"
"Oh!" I cried, "what a difference!"
Young Sweetwater's face absolutely shone.
"Isn't there?" he cried. "I got that idea while you were talking about Miss Meredith. But that is not all. We are not through with our experiments yet. A letter prefixed is not enough. We need to affix a few. Can you supply them?"
I stared at him in amazement.