Payne's hand fluttered up to stroke his chin; that gesture, Rampole remembered, he always used when he was nervous.
"It was a document," he responded at length. "I cannot say more, because, gentlemen, I do not know."
Dr. Fell got to his feet, a bulky walrus coming to the surface.
"Ah," he said, blowing out his breath and hitting one stick sharply on the floor, "that's what I thought. That's what I wanted to know. The document was never allowed to leave that iron box, was it, Payne?… Good! Very good! Then I can go on."
"I thought you didn't believe in any document," said the chief constable, turning with a still more satiric expression.
"Oh, I never said that," the other protested, mildly. "I only protested at your guessing, without any logical reasons, that there was a box and a document. I never said you were wrong. On the contrary, I had already arrived at your own conclusions, with good and logical evidence to support them. That's the difference, you see."
He lifted his head to look at Payne. He did not raise his voice.
"I'll not trouble you about the document that Anthony Starberth left for his heirs in the early nineteenth century," he said. "But, Payne, what about the other document?"
"Other-?"
"I mean the one that Timothy Starberth, Martin's father, left in the steel box, in that same vault, less than two years ago."