“Found it? Where?”
“I found it when groping about during the time I was blind, and I’ve carried it ever since, wondering whether one day I should discover its owner.”
“It is extraordinary?” she gasped—“most extraordinary.”
“You appear to recognise it,” I observed, much puzzled at her attitude. “If you can tell me to whom it belongs I will return it.”
She hesitated, and with a quick effort regained her self-control.
“I mean it possesses an extraordinary resemblance to one I have seen many times before—but I suppose there are lots of pencil-cases of the same shape,” she added with affected carelessness.
“But there is a curious, unintelligible cypher engraved upon it,” I said. “Did you notice it?”
“Yes. It is the engraving which makes me doubt that I know its owner. His initials were not those.”
“You speak in the past tense,” I observed. “Why!”
“Because—well, because we are no longer friends—if you desire to know the truth;” and she handed me back the object, which, with the dress-stud, formed the only clue I had to the identity of the unfortunate victim of the assassin.