“Guessed it,” he corrected, “by figuring out that they couldn’t well be elsewhere—unless on the untenable hypothesis that our friend, Mr. Greene here, was a thief.”
“Which only goes to prove,” said Kirby soberly, “that evidence may be a mighty deceptive accuser.”
“Which only goes to prove,” amended Average Jones, “that there’s no fire, even the bluest, without traceable smoke.”
CHAPTER VII. PIN-PRICKS
“The thing is a fake,” declared Bertram. He slumped heavily into a chair, and scowled at Average Jones’ well-littered desk, whereon he had just tossed a sheet of paper. His usually impeccable hair was tousled. His trousers evinced a distinct tendency to bag at the knees, and his coat was undeniably wrinkled. That the elegant and flawless dilettante of the Cosmic Club should have come forth, at eleven o’clock of a morning, in such a state of comparative disreputability, argued an upheaval of mind little short of phenomenal.
“A fake,” he reiterated. “I’ve spent a night of pseudo-intellectual riot and ruin over it. You’ve almost destroyed a young and innocent mind with your infernal palimpsest, Average.”
“You would have it,” returned Average Jones with a smile. “And I seem to recall a lofty intimation on your part that there never was a cipher so tough but what you could rope, throw, bind, and tie a pink ribbon on its tail in record time.”
“Cipher, yes,” returned the other bitterly. “That thing isn’t a cipher. It’s an alphabetical riot. Maybe,” he added hopefully, “there was some mistake in my copy?”
“Look for yourself,” said Average Jones, handing him the original.
It was a singular document, this problem in letters which had come to light up the gloom of a November day for Average Jones; a stiffish sheet of paper, ornamented on one side with color prints of alluring “spinners,” and on the other inscribed with an appeal, in print. Its original vehicle was an envelope, bearing a one-cent stamp, and addressed in typewriting: