He was holding the document and the copy, just an instant, as if considering how to announce with best effect what he had discovered.
“In order to unravel this mystery,” he resumed, looking up and facing the Elmores, Kilgore, and Hollins squarely, “I decided to find out whether any one had had access to that closet where the will was hidden. It was long ago, and there seemed to be little that I could do. I knew it was useless to look for fingerprints.
“So I used what we detectives now call the law of suggestion. I questioned closely one who was in touch with all those who might have had such access. I hinted broadly at seeking fingerprints which might lead to the identity of one who had entered the house unknown to the Godwins, and placed a document where private detectives would subsequently find it under suspicious circumstances.
“Naturally, it would seem to one who was guilty of such an act, or knew of it, that there might, after all, be finger-prints. I tried it. I found out through this little tube, the detectascope, that one really entered the room after that, and tried to wipe off any supposed finger-prints that might still remain. That settled it. The second will was a forgery, and the person who entered that room so stealthily this afternoon knows that it is a forgery.”
As Kennedy slapped down on the table the film from his camera, which had been concealed, Mrs. Godwin turned her now large and unnaturally bright eyes and met those of the other woman in the room.
“Oh—oh—heaven help us—me, I mean!” cried Miriam, unable to bear the strain of the turn of events longer. “I knew there would be retribution—I knew—I knew—”
Mrs. Godwin was on her feet in a moment.
“Once my intuition was not wrong though all science and law was against me,” she pleaded with Kennedy. There was a gentleness in her tone that fell like a soft rain on the surging passions of those who had wronged her so shamefully. “Professor Kennedy, Miriam could not have forged—”
Kennedy smiled. “Science was not against you, Mrs. Godwin. Ignorance was against you. And your intuition does not go contrary to science this time, either.”
It was a splendid exhibition of fine feeling which Kennedy waited to have impressed on the Elmores, as though burning it into their minds.