"Thank you, Jones," he said, replacing the ring beside the other objects. "But, hello, what's in this envelope?"
"Burnt scraps of the torn will. And look here, you have overlooked the will he was making," returned Jones, pushing forward a heavy sheet of paper.
"I noticed that," responded McKelvie indifferently. "May I look inside this envelope?"
"Surely. You will find that the most interesting scraps are the one with the name Darwin and the one with the partially burned letter R," explained Jones.
As in the case of the ring, McKelvie used his lens on the scraps, then he replaced them in the envelope.
"Thank you, Jones. Some day I hope to return the favor."
Jones, who had been highly amused by McKelvie's actions, waived aside the other's acknowledgment with a lordly air. "You are welcome to whatever you learned. Not much, was it?" he said.
"No, not much," replied McKelvie with a twinkle, adding as we passed out of earshot, "not much but quite enough, thank you, Mr. Jones."
"Then you did learn something of importance after all," I remarked as, seated once more in my car, we drove swiftly toward Broadway and headed uptown on our way to the Darwin home.
"Two things, one of which would have told me if I had not been positive before that Mrs. Darwin is innocent."