“There is corn in Egypt,” he cried gaily; he seemed in the highest spirits amid these depressing surroundings. “We will carouse while the night is still young. I am sorry I have no soda, and I fear all the houses are shut. But the whisky is good.”
He poured out two liberal portions, added some water, and drained his off at a draught. Then he stooped, and lifted the lid of a dilapidated tin box.
“Now for the letters,” he said.
In a few moments he had found them, tied together in a packet with a thin piece of twine. On a strip of paper within was: “Letters from Charles Bellamy to Caleb Boyle.”
Wingate took them, and rapidly scanned the contents of the first two. There were about a dozen in all. They related to purely business matters, dwelling upon the magnificent prospects of a certain company in which Boyle had taken shares, and exhorting him to patience under the present non-payment of dividends.
Read by the light of subsequent events, they were obviously the letters of a swindler to the victim he had entrapped in his financial meshes.
But, of course, to Wingate the supreme matter of interest was the handwriting. And here, he could not be positive. He had read the threatening letter, and he knew the contents of it by heart. But that was some time ago, and he could not form a mental picture of it.
“Can you trust me with one of those, Mr Boyle, to show to our friend Smeaton, so that he may compare it with a letter in his possession. I think, so far as my memory serves me, they were written by the same man, but I want to see the two together. If you would rather not part with it, bring it down yourself to-morrow to Scotland Yard, and I will meet you there.”
Boyle was hurt at the suggestion. “My dear Wingate, take the whole packet, if you wish. After the noble way in which you have behaved to-night, is it likely I should refuse such a trifling thing?”
“Thanks, they shall be returned to you directly Smeaton has done with them. A thousand thanks, and now I will say good-night. I have to be up betimes to-morrow morning.”