“But——”
“There aren’t any buts. I think I can verify my assertion. I came here for that purpose and many others equally important. You keep quiet.”
Nick reached over to the desk while speaking and took from it the pad of paper mentioned.
With an eye on Kate Crandall all the while, he compared the size of the printed sheet with the pad. It corresponded exactly.
From a little tin box brought from his business office, Nick then sprinkled the quantity of dry black dust over the face of the pad, which he then held at a slight angle and blew the dust from the surface.
Most of it was dispersed with a single breath. There remained, in fact, only the particles that occupied the faint indentations, scarcely perceptible before, caused by the pressure of a pencil through the printed sheet that had been removed from the pad—lines and letters which the black dust now brought out quite vividly.
The face of the pad, in fact, now presented quite a legible likeness of the Redlaw letter—so like it that further denial was out of the question.
Nick turned the pad and displayed it to the watching woman.
“What say you now?” he asked sternly. “Out with it! What have you to say?”
“If it’s all the same to you, Carter, I’ll do the saying at this stage of the game.”