“No,” agreed Penfield. “Quite so. It is like cross-examination. Well, I am afraid you won’t pick up much this time, but if you really wish to inspect the envelope, I suppose, as you say, I need not scruple to place it in your hands.”
With this he rose and walked over to the safe, and opened it, opened an inner drawer, and, keeping his back towards Thorndyke, took out the envelope, which he carefully emptied of its contents. Thorndyke sat motionless, not looking at the lawyer’s back but listening intently. Not a sound, however, reached his ears until the iron drawer slid back into its case, when Penfield turned and, without a word, laid the empty envelope on the table before him.
For a few moments Thorndyke looked at the envelope as it lay, noting that, although empty, it retained the bulge caused by its late contents, and that those contents must have been somewhat bulky. Then he picked it up and inspected it methodically, committing his observations to memory, since written notes seemed unadvisable under the circumstances. It was an oblong, “commercial” envelope about six inches long by three and three quarters wide. The address was written with a pen of medium width and unusually black ink in a rather small, fluent, legible hand with elegant capitals of a distinctly uncial type. The postmark was that of Penzance, dated the 23rd of June, 8.30 p.m. But of more interest to Thorndyke than the date, which he already knew, was an impression which the postmark stamp had made by striking the corner of the enclosure and thus defining its position in the envelope. From this he was able to judge that the object enclosed was oblong in shape, about five inches long or a little more and somewhat less than three inches wide, and that it consisted of some soft material—presumably folded paper—since the blow of the metal stamp had left but a blunt impression of the corner. He next examined the edge of the flap, first with the naked eye and then with his pocket lens, and finally, turning back the flap from the place where the envelope had been neatly cut open, he closely scrutinized its inner surface.
“Have you examined this envelope, Mr. Penfield?” he asked.
“Not in that exhaustive and minute manner,” replied the solicitor, who had been watching the process with profound disfavour. “Why do you ask?”
“Because there appears to me a suggestion of its having been opened by moistening the flap and then reclosed, Just look at it through the glass, especially at the inside, where the gum seems to have spread more than one would expect from a single closing and where there is a slight cockling of the paper.” He handed the envelope and the lens to Penfield, who seemed to find some difficulty in managing the latter and after a brief inspection returned both the articles to Thorndyke.
“I have not your experience and skill,” he said. “You may be right, but all the probabilities are against your suggestion. If Purcell had reopened the letter, it would surely have been to correct an error rather than to make one. And the letter certainly belonged to the enclosures.”
“On the other hand,” said Thorndyke, “when an envelope has been steamed or damped open, it will be laid down flap uppermost, with the addressed side hidden and a mistake might occur in that way. However, there is probably nothing in it. That, I gather, is your opinion?”
Unfortunately it was. Very glad would Penfield have been to believe that the envelope had been opened and the blanks put in by another hand. But he had read Purcell’s letter and knew its connection with the enclosures.
“May I ask if you were expecting a letter from Purcell?” Thorndyke asked.