“Perhaps,” suggested Eames, “Mr. Bredon could tell us what view the Indescribable would take of such a case.”
“They would be hard put to it,” said Bredon. “Fortunately, there is no question of any such doubt here. For Leyland’s suggestion of murder was only based on the impossibility of suicide, in view of the gas being turned off. Whereas Mr. Pulteney’s ingenious suggestion has all the difficulties in it which Leyland was trying to avoid.”
“I’m hanged if I can make head or tail of it,” said Leyland. “It’s like a nightmare, this case; every time you think you’ve found some solid ground to rest on, it sinks under your feet. I shall begin to believe in ghosts soon. And what are we to make of the message itself? Might I see the envelope, My Lord? . . . Thank you. Well, it’s clear that Brinkman wasn’t putting the letter up on the ledge; he was taking it down. It’s so weather-stained that it must clearly have been there the best part of a week. Now, why on earth was Brinkman so anxious to take the letter away with him? For the letter proved it was suicide, and that’s precisely what he wanted to have proved.”
“Brinkman may not have known what was in the letter,” suggested Eames.
“He may have thought the thousand pounds were in it,” suggested Pulteney, “waiting there as a surprise present for the Bishop. I am no acrobat myself, but I believe I could jump pretty high if you gave me that sum to aspire to.”
“I wonder if Brinkman did know?” said Leyland. “Of course if he did he was an accessory before the fact to Mottram’s suicide. And that might make him anxious for his own position—but it doesn’t ring true, that idea.”
“Might I see the letter itself?” asked Bredon. “It sounds impolite, I know; but I only want to look at the way in which it’s written. . . . Thank you, My Lord. . . . It’s rather a suggestive fact, isn’t it, that this letter was copied?”
“Copied?” asked the Bishop. “How on earth can you tell that?”
“I am comparing it in my mind’s eye with the letter we found lying about in Mottram’s bedroom, half-finished. Mottram wrote with difficulty; his thoughts didn’t flow to his pen. Consequently, in that letter to the Pullford Examiner you will find that only the last sentence at the bottom of the page has been blotted when the ink was wet. The rest of the page had had time to dry naturally, while Mottram was thinking of what to say next. But this letter of yours, My Lord, has been written straight off, and the blotting process becomes more and more marked the further you get down the page. I say, therefore, that Mottram had already composed the letter in rough, and when he set down to this sheet of paper he was copying it straight down.”
“You’re not suggesting that Brinkman dictated the letter?” asked Leyland. “Of course that would open up some interesting possibilities.”