"Most of the evidence in criminal cases is circumstantial and deductive. Another thing makes me think that it is a woman. There is a great deal of useless mystery here. A man would not have troubled about that. He would have inserted a third advertisement appointing time and place; but this woman can't resist a touch of the mysterious. Therefore she devises this silly cardboard star; sends it through the post; and so betrays herself."
"How can she betray herself when there is no address?"
"There is no address; but there is a postmark. Look at the envelope."
Garth picked up the paper, and saw that the postmark was Taxton-on-Thames.
"Why!" he cried in astonishment, "that is where my cousin Louis lives."
"Yes, and it is where Dr. Binjoy lives, which is more to the purpose," said Fanks, dryly. "Did I not tell you that I was right to doubt that gentleman."
Garth looked again at the envelope. "You say that this handwriting is that of an elderly woman. I suppose you are thinking of Mrs. Boazoph?"
"Indeed I am not. I give Mrs. Boazoph more credit than to murder a man in her own hotel and advertise the fact so openly. She is not a fool. But patience, Garth, we are not yet at the end of our discoveries."
He again searched the drawers. In many of them there was nothing likely to attract his attention; but in the lowest drawer on the right hand side, Garth made a discovery. It was that of a pretty girl's photograph, and this he showed to Fanks with a laugh.
"Gregory always had a weakness for pretty faces," he remarked. "Do you not think that his taste was good?"