“I think I know what this one was,” I said; “but”—seeing him look up—“must decline to communicate my suspicion to you for the present. My theory stands unshaken, and in some degree confirmed; and that is all I can say.”
“Then this letter does not supply the link you wanted?”
“No: it is a valuable bit of evidence; but it is not the link I am in search of just now.”
“Yet it must be an important clue, or Eleanore Leavenworth would not have been to such pains, first to take it in the way she did from her uncle’s table, and secondly——”
“Wait! what makes you think this is the paper she took, or was believed to have taken, from Mr. Leavenworth’s table on that fatal morning?”
“Why, the fact that it was found together with the key, which we know she dropped into the grate, and that there are drops of blood on it.”
I shook my head.
“Why do you shake your head?” asked Mr. Gryce.
“Because I am not satisfied with your reason for believing this to be the paper taken by her from Mr. Leavenworth’s table.”
“And why?”