On the contrary, the edges were pasted neatly down on the leather.

I lifted the bag and examined it. As I did so I saw lying on the table
beside it an oblong of yellow canvas. I picked it up and found the under
side stained with paste and the brown of the leather.

It was the missing piece of lining and it was stiff with something that
crackled inside it.

I slit the piece of canvas up one side with my penknife. It contained
three long fragments of paper, a thick, expensive, highly glazed paper.
Top, bottom and left-hand side of each was trim and glossy: the fourth
side showed a broken edge as though it had been roughly cut with a
knife. The three slips of paper were the halves of three quarto sheets
of writing, torn in two, lengthways, from top to bottom.

At the top of each slip was part of some kind of crest in gold, what, it
was not possible to determine, for the crest had been in the centre of
the sheet and the cut had gone right through it.

The letter was written in English but the name of the recipient as also
the date was on the missing half.

Somewhere in the silence of the night I heard a door bang. I thrust the
slips of paper in their canvas covering into my trousers pocket. I must
not be found in that room. With trembling hands I started to put the
things back in the bag. Those slips of paper, I reflected as I worked,
at least rent the veil of mystery enveloping the corpse that lay
stiffening in the next room. This, at any rate, was certain: German or
American or hyphenate, Henry Semlin, manufacturer and spy, had voyaged