"I tried; but fate has rebuked me. Now I see my duty."
Her eyes had not followed Leighton's figure as he joined his brothers in the library, but mine did, and it did not make my heart any lighter to see from the glance he tossed her on entering that he was prepared for some event serious enough to warrant all this emotion.
"You have found what you have sought!" she cried, intercepting the young detective in her anxiety to end the suspense it took all her strength to sustain.
His smile was dubious, but it was a smile. Meantime the paper he held had found its way into the coroner's hands.
"Call Gryce!" shouted out that functionary, with a doubtful look at the slip in his hand; "I shall need his experience in deciphering this."
The detective was at his side in an instant, and together they bent over the scrap. The suspense was great, and the moment well-nigh intolerable. Then we saw the detective's finger rest on a certain portion of the paper they were mutually consulting, and remain there. The coroner read the words thus indicated, and his face showed both strong and sudden feeling.
"Ah!" he ejaculated. "What do you make out of that?"
The detective uttered a few low words, and taking the piece which had been in the envelope he fitted it to the one held by the coroner. We could all see that they were part of the same sheet.
"I should like to see if it also fits the portion that was left in the typewriter," suggested the other, ignoring the anxious looks bent upon him from every side. Passing by us all, he laid the three pieces together on the library table with a glance at the young Gillespies which was not without its element of compassion.
"Let us see it. What's on it?" urged Alfred. "Why, this is worse than father's death."