“What is that?”
“That whatever was written was not written in English.”
“How so?”
“Those two accentuating dots are never used in English. They are used sometimes—very rarely—in poetry, I believe, but we may suppose the writing on this to have been in prose.”
“Let’s suppose so,” said Dennison. “Though I’ve seen poetry written on the back of a photograph before this; it was in the case of a fellow called Buckingham. He’d given it to his girl, and the next thing he did was to murder her. His poetry hanged him.”
“I don’t know of any language,” said Freyberger, contemplatively, in which the combination llir might occur commonly; lir is, of course, common; llir most uncommon; suppose it is an e, though there is no perceptible loop—ller.
“That seems to me as uncommon as the other,” said Dennison.
“Ah!” cried Freyberger, suddenly, “I have it.”
“What?”
“See!”