She looked at it closely and ran her fingers over its surface.
“Yes,” she answered. “It is Considine Manor notepaper—I am sure of that. We have used it for years. I can show it to you.”
She went across to Sir Charles Considine’s desk that stood in the corner. “Here is some,” she said. “Compare it for yourself.”
Anthony took it and inspected its texture and quality. Then passed it over to me. There was no doubt about it.
The fragments that I had picked up were pieces of the Manor notepaper.
Then I took a hand. “If you don’t recognize the letter, Mary, that these fragments are part of—well, it seems to me that you can’t have written it. Don’t you see what I mean?”
She gazed at me blankly. Then her reason appeared to reassert itself. “That’s just how it appears to me, Bill! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell both of you.” She crossed and seated herself again.
“Yet it is your handwriting—you are certain,” interposed Anthony.
“Yet it is my handwriting——” she echoed his words in acquiescence.
“It’s a staggerer,” I exclaimed. “It all seems so completely contradictory.”