The final ejaculation was merely a breath, but pregnant with satisfaction. The point of the stick had revealed a small piece of paper, one edge charred, but containing a number of written words—one a name which sent a thrill through the searcher.
The fragment had once been the lower left-hand corner of a sheet of the commonest kind of note-paper, and inside the charred edge could be read the commencement of two lines—evidently the last two—and a portion of the signature, all written in Spanish, and by a feminine hand:
Eso es
¿ Acabo V? No
Paquita y
At this moment Mr. Converse—for the first time in his life, perhaps,—had reason to bless certain years spent with Abram Follett in Latin America; for to his understanding, and without any great knowledge of the Spanish language, the words signified:
It is ... (or, is not?)
Are you ready? No ...
Paquita and ...
Was this a portion of the "conjure paper"? Was this the message that had hoodooed the unfortunate General—containing, beyond the scope of the physician's skill, a potent cause for mental distress? Was it the herald of his wretched end?
And Paquita—again the pretty feminine prænomen! Disclosing no identity, it flaunted itself at every stage of the investigation with a vagueness of allusion tantalizing and vexing to an extreme; ever presenting to the mind's eye no more than a faint, nebulous image of maiden loveliness, at once precocious and ingenuous. "Paquita and—" whom? What other name had completed the signature to the destroyed missive?
Mr. Converse produced the familiar and well-worn pocket-book; and therein, with extraordinary care, he deposited the precious fragment of paper.
Further search disclosed nothing more of value, and in a few minutes he went back to the house to confront Doctor Westbrook and Joyce.