“You are in error,” he retorted very calmly, returning to his writing-table and taking up some papers. “I have here the original of the telegram handed in at the branch post-office in the Strand yesterday afternoon.”
“Well?”
“It has been examined by the calligraphic expert employed by the police, and declared to be in your handwriting.”
“What?” I gasped, almost snatching the yellow telegraph form from his hand in my eagerness to examine the mysterious jumble of letters and figures composing the cypher. My heart sank within me when next instant I recognised they were in a hand so nearly resembling my own that I could scarcely detect any difference whatever.
As I stood gazing at this marvellous forgery, open-mouthed in abject dismay, there broke upon my ear a short, harsh laugh—a laugh of triumph.
Raising my head, the Earl’s penetrating gaze met mine. “Now,” he exclaimed, “come, acknowledge the truth. It is useless to prevaricate.”
“I have told the truth,” I answered. “I never wrote this.”
For an instant his steely eyes flashed as his blanched face assumed an expression of unutterable hatred and disgust. Then he shouted,—
“You are a thief, a spy and a liar, sir! Leave me instantly. Even in the face of such evidence as this you protest innocence with childish simplicity. You have betrayed your country into the hands of her enemies, and are, even now, seeking to throw blame and suspicion upon myself. You—”
“I have not done so. I merely suggested that the document might have been exchanged while in your possession. Surely—”