But he held his right hand out with a flourish. "I've been writing
with a fountain pen," he said in deep disgust, and turned his back on
me.

But the next moment he had run to the wash-stand and pulled it out
from the wall. Behind it, where it had fallen, lay a towel, covered
with stains, as if some one had wiped bloody hands on it. He held it
up, his face working with excitement. I could only cover my eyes.

"This looks better," he said, and began making a quick search of the
room, running from one piece of furniture to another, pulling out
bureau drawers, drawing the bed out from the wall, and crawling along
the base-board with a lighted match in his hand. He gave a shout of
triumph finally, and reappeared from behind the bed with the broken
end of my knife in his hand.

"Very clumsy," he said. "_Very_ clumsy. Peter the dog could have done
better."

I had been examining the wall-paper about the wash-stand. Among the
ink-spots were one or two reddish ones that made me shiver. And seeing
a scrap of note-paper stuck between the base-board and the wall, I
dug it out with a hairpin, and threw it into the grate, to be burned
later. It was by the merest chance there was no fire there. The next
moment Mr. Holcombe was on his knees by the fireplace reaching for the
scrap.

"_Never_ do that, under such circumstances," he snapped, fishing among
the ashes. "You might throw away valuable--Hello, Howell!"