‘I promise, monsieur.’
‘Then I may say that I am a private detective, employed on behalf of the typewriter company to investigate some very extraordinary—I can only call them frauds, which have recently been taking place. In some way, which up to the present we have been unable to fathom, several of our machines have developed faults which, you understand, do not prevent them working, but which prevent them being quite satisfactory. The altering of tensions and the slight twisting of type to put them out of alignment are the kind of things I mean. We hardly like to suspect rival firms of practising these frauds to get our machines into disfavour, and yet it is hard to account for it otherwise. Now, we think that you can possibly give us some information, and I am authorised by my company to hand you one hundred francs if you will be kind enough to do so.’
The surprise had not left the girl’s face as she answered:—
‘I should have been very pleased, monsieur, to tell you all I knew without any payment, had I known anything to tell. But I am afraid I don’t.’
‘I think, mademoiselle, you can help us if you will. May I ask you a few questions?’
‘Certainly.’
‘The first is, can you describe the machine you used prior to the purchase of the new one?’
‘Yes, it was a No. 7 Remington.’
‘I did not mean that,’ answered La Touche, eagerly noting this information, ‘I knew that, of course, as it is this No. 7 machine I am inquiring about. What I meant to ask was, had it any special marks or peculiarities by which it could be distinguished from other No. 7’s?’
‘Why, no, I don’t think so,’ the girl answered thoughtfully. ‘And yet there were. The letter S on the S-key had got twisted round to the right and there were three scratches here’—she indicated the side plate of an imaginary typewriter.