“Yes;” beginning to open the packet with quick, nervous fingers.
“And you found—” He paused and looked up at the Expert.
Carnegie took from the packet the letter addressed to Alan Warburton, and written in the scrawling, unreadable hand. This he spread open upon the desk. Then he took another letter, written in an elegant hand, and with various vigorous ornamental flourishes. This he laid beside the first, pushing the remaining letters carelessly aside as if they were of no importance.
“I find—” he said, looking hard at the Chief, and putting one forefinger upon the elegant bit of penmanship, the other upon the unreadable scrawl;—“I find that these two were written by the same hand.”
The Chief leaned forward; he had not been able to see the writing from the place in which he sat. He leaned closer and fixed his eyes upon the two signatures. The one he had seen before; the other was signed—Vernet.
Slowly he withdrew his eyes from the signature, and turned them upon the face of the Expert.
“Carnegie,” he asked, “do you ever make a mistake?”
“I?” Carnegie’s look said the rest.
“Because,” went on the Chief, scarcely noticing Carnegie’s indignant exclamation, “if you ever made a mistake, I should say, I should wish to believe, that this was one.”
“It’s no mistake,” replied the Expert grimly. “I never saw a clearer case.”