from the gallery down to that west porch. What, then, was the
inference? But for the moment he drew none--instead, he went
home to his rooms in Friary Lane, and shutting himself up,
drew from his pocket the scrap of paper he had taken from the
dead man.




CHAPTER V

THE SCRAP OF PAPER


When Bryce, in his locked room, drew that bit of paper from
his pocket, it was with the conviction that in it he held a
clue to the secret of the morning's adventure. He had only
taken a mere glance at it as he withdrew it from the dead
man's purse, but he had seen enough of what was written on it
to make him certain that it was a document--if such a mere
fragment could be called a document--of no ordinary
importance. And now he unfolded and laid it flat on his table
and looked at it carefully, asking himself what was the real
meaning of what he saw.

There was not much to see. The scrap of paper itself was
evidently a quarter of a leaf of old-fashioned, stoutish
notepaper, somewhat yellow with age, and bearing evidence of
having been folded and kept flat in the dead man's purse for
some time--the creases were well-defined, the edges were worn