together the torn bits of the letter which he had fished out of
the scrap-basket, "which detectives use in studying forgeries. I
don't know that it has a name, although it might be called a
'rayograph.' You see, all you have to do is to lay the thing you
wish to study flat here, and the system of mirrors and lenses
reflects it and enlarges it on a sheet."

He had lowered a rolled-up sheet of white at the opposite end of
the room, and there, in huge characters, stood forth plainly the
writing of the note.

"This letter," he resumed, studying the enlargement carefully, "is
likely to prove crucial. It's very queer. Collins says he didn't
write it, and if he did he surely is a wonder at disguising his
hand. I doubt if any one could disguise what the rayograph shows.
Now, for instance, this is very important. Do you see how those
strokes of the long letters are--well, wobbly? You'd never see
that in the original, but when it is enlarged you see how plainly
visible the tremors of the hand become? Try as you may, you can't
conceal them. The fact is that the writer of this note suffered
from a form of heart disease. Now let us look at the copy that
Collins made at the Novella."

He placed the copy on the table of the rayograph. It was quite
evident that the two had been written by entirely different
persons. "I thought he was telling the truth," commented Craig,
"by the surprised look on his face the moment I mentioned the note
to Miss Blaisdell. Now I know he was. There is no such evidence of
heart trouble in his writing as in the other. Of course that's all
aside from what a study of the handwriting itself might disclose.