“He at first attempted to slander my father, and I used some high words, perhaps. But it soon passed over.”
“Humph! We will hope that nobody was within hearing distance!”
Carlos stared a moment, and then a shade passed over his face. He saw the force of the lawyer’s remark.
“I have been thinking of one thing,” he at length said, “and that is what the murderer could have wanted of the slip of paper I took from my uncle’s hand. It contained only the words, ‘seven o’clock,’ which certainly have no meaning in themselves.”
“Have you it here now?”
“Yes, here it is.”
The lawyer took it and examined it.
“It is a torn fragment,” he said.
“Yes,” replied Carlos, “and I judge from the envelope lying on the table that my uncle must have been writing. He was, perhaps, holding an unfinished letter in his hand and looking it over. The murderer jerked it hastily, and tore it, leaving this piece in his victim’s grasp. Now whether it contains the finishing words of some information conveyed in the larger part, is more than I know. But that is the only theory by which I can account for the villain’s anxiety to obtain it.”
The lawyer considered for a moment. Finally he said: