“You’ve got it; a telegraph operator.”
“Exactly. Do you know any telegrapher, Miss Raynor?”
“No, indeed!” and Olive looked astounded at the suggestion that she should number such among her acquaintances. “Are you sure?”
“Looks mighty like it. The short sentences and the elimination of personal pronouns seem to me to denote a telegraph girl’s diction. And she is very clever! She has sent the carbon copy of the letter and not the outside typing.”
“Why?” I asked.
“To make it less traceable. You know, typewriting is very nearly as individual as pen-writing. The differentiations of the machine as well as of the user’s technique, are almost invariably so pronounced as to make the writing recognizable. Now these peculiarities, while often clear on the first paper, are blurred more or less on the carbon copy. So ‘A Friend,’ thinking to be very canny, has sent the carbon. This is a new trick, though I’ve seen it done several times of late. But it isn’t so misleading as it is thought to be. For all the individual peculiarities of the typewriter,—I mean, the machine, are almost as visible on this as on the other. I’ve noticed them in this case, easily. And moreover, this would-be clever writer has overreached herself! For a carbon copy smudges so easily that it is almost impossible to touch it, even to fold the sheet, without leaving a telltale thumb or finger print! And this correspondent has most obligingly done so!”
“Really!” breathed Zizi, with a note of satisfaction in her low voice.
“And the peculiarities,—what are they?” asked Olive.
“The one that jumps out and hits me first is the elevated s. Look,—and you have to look closely, Miss Raynor,—in every instance the letter s is a tiny speck higher than the other letters.”
“Why, so it is,” and Olive examined the letter with deep interest; “but how can you find a machine with an elevated s?”