As he finished speaking, he drew from one of his pockets a white handkerchief bordered with a thin line of black, and having shaken it out, held it up to the light. On it were three or four crimson stains. "It is yours. Here are your initials in one corner," he said.
He had a softly modulated voice, but just now there was no more emotion either in it or his manner than if he had been discussing the state of the weather.
Drelincourt started to his feet, his face blanched to the lips. A moment or two he stared at the handkerchief as though it had for him a horrible fascination. Then the eyes of the two men met in a silence which seemed charged with hidden meaning.
"A dumb witness, but enough to hang a man," said Drelincourt at length, as he turned away with a shudder.
Marsh did not reply, but, after a keen glance round, as if to make sure there was no lurking onlooker, he let the handkerchief drop to the ground, and then, dropping on one knee, he set it alight with a match from his fusee box.
Drelincourt, his back supported by a tree, stood looking on in silence till the flame had burned itself out, and nothing was left save a little fine ash, which a wandering breeze presently caught up and frolicked off with into the depths of the wood.
"This also I found," resumed Roden. "It was lying open on the writing table in your dressing room at the Towers for anybody to see. It is in your writing, and is dated today."
As he spoke, he produced a letter from his breast pocket and handed it to Drelincourt, who took it mechanically and a half dazed man. It was without an envelope, and was simply folded in two. Opening it, he read it in silence and with growing amazement.
"An unfinished letter to my friend, Professor Ridsdale. And you say that you found it in my dressing room at the Towers?"
"I do."