“For Mr. Blaine,” she whispered. “See that it reaches him immediately.”
A half hour afterward, Ramon Hamilton went to the telephone in his office, and heard the detective’s voice over the wire.
“Mr. Hamilton, have you among the letters and documents at your office the signature of the person we were discussing the other day?”
“Why, yes, I think so. I will look and see. If I have do you wish me to send it around to you?”
“No, thank you. A messenger boy will call for it in a few minutes.”
Wondering, Ramon Hamilton shuffled hastily through the paper in the pigeon-holes of his desk until he came to a letter from Pennington Lawton. He carefully tore off the signature, and when the messenger boy appeared, gave it to him. He would not have been so puzzled, had he seen the great Henry Blaine, when a few minutes had elapsed, seated before the desk in his office, comparing the signature of the torn slip which he had sent with that affixed to the duplicate mortgage.
A long, close, breathless scrutiny, with the most powerful magnifying glasses, and the detective jumped to his feet.
“That’s no signature of Pennington Lawton,” he exulted to himself. “I thought I knew that fine hand, perfectly as the forgery has been done. That’s the work of James Brunell, by the Lord!”