It was inscribed, "Miss Susan Sunshine,"—evidently a playful sobriquet designating Charlotte,—and a bit of violet-hued wax bore the Westbrook crest. He merely glanced at the legible and flowing characters; noted that, as it bore no stamp, it had obviously been delivered by private messenger, and then shook his head. "I have never seen that handwriting before," was his only spoken observation as he handed the parcel back to Charlotte. It is impossible that she could have imagined the feeling of anticipation, almost if not quite anxious in its intensity, that stirred within him in the face of the rapidly forming pattern into which immediate events were patently shaping themselves.
But the curiosity now animating her had not yet been satisfied. "Look at this," she persisted, hastily selecting another envelope from the lot. "I have read of marvellous feats of a detective reading a person's entire life from a scrap of that person's chirography. I have a curiosity to know what you make of this."
"I have read of such things, too," with a little laugh; "but I am afraid they are mostly confined to fiction. Still a fragment of one's handwriting is often a great aid in—" He stopped, and his brow shot into a pucker as his glance fell upon the envelope now in his hand. "This is by another hand," he concluded, sharply.
"You are correct; yet—yet—"
He glanced up quickly, giving Charlotte a rapier-like look. "Miss Westbrook wrote it?" he completed her sentence.
She nodded brightly.
"Then she is—" He searched his memory for a word which the District Attorney had suggested to him on a similar occasion; and as Mr. Mountjoy supplied it then, so did Charlotte now.
"Ambidextrous," said she. "Her left hand is reserved for the 'Susan Sunshine' letters and all such whimsical correspondence, while this last is her individual handwriting. Equal facility in the use of either hand is a hereditary Westbrook trait."
He remained still so long that she began to manifest some impatience. "You attach no importance to it, do you?" she asked with some misgiving.
He did not respond immediately. Now was an occasion when his ability absolutely to conceal all feeling could serve him admirably. Looking at Charlotte he had not the heart to tell her that she was innocently supplying such serious connecting links to the chain of evidence tightening about her beloved friend. While the handwriting on the second envelope in no wise resembled the writing on the charred fragment of the "Paquita" letter, further than that both were feminine, yet that circumstance of Joyce's ambidexterity—how portentous it was!