But why should Mr. Converse's aspect abruptly become so grim and portentous? Did the odor of stephanotis blind him utterly to the brother's and sister's grief?
At any rate, he certainly sniffed once more, and, with a dubious shake of the head, walked away and left them alone together.
CHAPTER XI
A BURNT FRAGMENT
When Mr. Converse so abruptly left the brother and sister in the hall, he proceeded directly to the library, whence the body had already been removed. Merkel had left the room, so he found himself quite alone with his own thoughts, which, for a time, turned sombrely upon what was to him entirely an unknown quantity:—Joyce. After a while he seated himself in the swivel-chair, and fell to contemplating the cryptic blotter.
Under his methodical examination the tangled lines finally resolved themselves into portions of written words,—all backwards, of course,—and of more or less length according to the extent the ink of the original writing had dried before the application of the blotter.
In the first place, if the blotter had been a new one or nearly so when it was last used, then the writing upon which General Westbrook had been engaged the preceding night was lengthy. Again, the longest line was one which had been heavily underscored; it contained three words fairly easy to decipher, and a portion of a fourth. When reversed they read: "......ndum of Castillo Estate." As Converse perused it he felt a strange thrill, a feeling of exultation, run through his big frame, as if something tangible to work upon were at last before his eyes; he read in it a hope that he would not have to do with a Herodias or a Semiramis.
"Memorandum of Castillo Estate"—evidently, from the heaviness with which it had been written and underlined, was the caption of the lost document.
There was one letter which, in connection with others and fragments of other letters, was repeated no less than twelve times—the letter "z," McCaleb's curlicue. What could the absorbed reader conclude otherwise than that he had an even dozen terminations of the name De Sanchez? Clearly, then, the missing document had primarily to do with the estate of one Castillo,—a name with which Converse was not entirely unfamiliar, as shall later on be seen,—and Alberto de Sanchez had been intimately connected therewith. So much for the blotter.
His cogitations were interrupted by the simultaneous entrance of McCaleb and Doctor Westbrook. The latter sank heavily into the Morris chair and into a brooding reverie that ignored the others, while the Captain drew McCaleb into the embrasure of the bay-window behind the desk.