case (as I consider I have done) without it. But this is absolutely and finally conclusive. Will everybody examine these, please?'
Miss Dammers produced from her bag a brown - paper - covered parcel. Unwrapping it, she brought to light a photograph and a quarto sheet of paper which looked like a typed letter.
'The photograph,' she explained, 'I obtained it from Chief Inspector Moresby the other day, but without telling him the specific purpose for which I wanted it. It is of the forged letter, actual size. I should like everybody to compare it with this typed copy of the letter. Will you look at them first, Mr. Sheringham, and then pass them round? Notice particularly the slightly crooked s's and the chipped capital H.'
In dead silence Roger pored over the two. He examined them for a full two minutes, which seemed to the others more like two hours, and then passed them on to Sir Charles on his right.
'There isn't the slightest doubt that those two were done on the same machine,' he said soberly.
Miss Dammers showed neither less nor more emotion than she had displayed throughout. Her voice carried exactly the same impersonal inflection. She might have been announcing her discovery of a match between two pieces of dress - material. From her level tone it could never have been guessed that a man's neck depended on her words no less than on the rope that was to hang him.
'You will find the machine in Sir Eustace's rooms,' she said.
Even Mr. Bradley was moved. 'Then as I said, he deserves all that's coming to him,' he drawled, with a quite impossible nonchalance, and even attempted a yawn. 'Dear me, what a distressing bungler.'
Sir Charles passed on the evidence. 'Miss Dammers,' he said impressively, 'you have rendered a very great service to society. I congratulate you.'
'Thank you, Sir Charles,' replied Miss Dammers, matter - of - factly. 'But it was Mr. Sheringham's idea, you know.'
'Mr. Sheringham,' intoned Sir Charles, 'sowed better than he knew.'
Roger, who had hoped to add another feather to his cap by solving the mystery himself, smiled in a somewhat sickly way.
Mrs. Fielder - Flemming improved the occasion. 'We have made history,' she said with fitting solemnity. 'When the whole police - force of a nation had failed, a woman has uncovered the dark mystery. Alicia, this is a red - letter day, not only for you, not only for this Circle, but for Woman.'
'Thank you, Mabel,' responded Miss Dammers. 'How very nice of you to say so.'
The evidence passed slowly round the table and returned to Miss Dammers. She handed it on to Roger.
'Mr. Sheringham, I think you had better take charge of these. As President, I leave the matter in your hands. You know as much as I do. As you may imagine, to inform the police officially myself would be extremely distasteful. I should like my name kept out of any communication you make to them, entirely.'
Roger was rubbing his chin. 'I think that can be done. I could just hand these things over to him, with the information where the machine is, and let Scotland Yard work the case up themselves. These, and the motive, with the evidence of the porter at Fellows's Hotel of which I shall have to tell Moresby, are the only things that will really interest the police, I think. Humph! I suppose I'd better see Moresby to - night. Will you come with me, Sir Charles? It would add weight.'
'Certainly, certainly,' Sir Charles agreed with alacrity.
Everybody looked, and felt, very serious.
'I suppose,' Mr. Chitterwick dropped shyly into all this solemnity, 'I suppose you couldn't put it off for twenty - four hours, could you?'
Roger looked his surprise. 'But why?'
'Well, you know ...' Mr. Chitterwick wriggled with diffidence. 'Well - I haven't spoken yet, you know.'
Five pairs of eyes fastened on him in astonishment. Mr. Chitterwick blushed warmly.
'Of course. No, of course.' Roger was trying to be as tactful as he could. 'And - well, that is to say, you want to speak, of course?'
'I have a theory,' said Mr. Chitterwick modestly. 'I - I don't want to speak, no. But I have a theory.'
'Yes, yes,' said Roger, and looked helplessly at Sir Charles.
Sir Charles marched to the rescue. 'I'm sure we shall all be most interested to hear Mr. Chitterwick's theory,' he pronounced. 'Most interested. But why not let us have it now, Mr. Chitterwick? '
'It isn't quite complete,' said Mr. Chitterwick, unhappy but persistent. 'I should like another twenty - four hours to clear up one or two points.
Sir Charles had an inspiration. 'Of course, of course. We must meet tomorrow and listen to Mr. Chitterwick's theory, of course. In the meantime Sheringham and I will just call in at Scotland Yard and - - '
'I'd much rather you didn't,' said Mr. Chitterwick, now in the deeps of misery. 'Really I would.' Again Roger looked helplessly at Sir Charles. This time Sir Charles looked helplessly back.
'Well - I suppose another twenty - four hours wouldn't make much difference,' said Roger with reluctance. 'After all this time.'
'Not very much difference,' pleaded Mr. Chitterwick.
'Well, not very much difference certainly,' agreed Sir Charles, frankly puzzled.
'Then have I your word, Mr. President?' persisted Mr. Chitterwick, very mournfully.
'If you put it like that,' said Roger, rather coldly. The meeting then broke up, somewhat bewildered.
CHAPTER XVII
IT was quite evident that, as he had said, Mr. Chitterwick did not want to speak. He looked appealingly round the circle of faces the next evening when Roger asked him to do so, but the faces remained decidedly unsympathetic. Mr Chitterwick, expressed the faces plainly, was being a silly old woman.
Mr. Chitterwick cleared his throat nervously two or three times and took the plunge. 'Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, I quite realise what you must be thinking, and I must plead for leniency. I can only say in excuse of what you must consider my perversity, that convincing though Miss Dammers's clever exposition was and definite as her proofs appeared, we have listened to so many apparently convincing solutions of this mystery and been confronted with so many seemingly definite proofs, that I could not help feeling that perhaps even Miss Dammers's theory might not prove on reflection to be not quite so strong as one would at first think.' Mr. Chitterwick, having surmounted this tall obstacle, blinked rapidly but was unable to recall the next sentence he had prepared so carefully.
He jumped it, and went on a little. 'As the one to whom has fallen the task, both a privilege and a responsibility, of speaking last, you may not consider it out of place if I take the liberty of summing up the various conclusions that have been reached here, so different in both their methods and results. Not to waste time however in going over old ground, I have prepared a little chart which may show more clearly the various contrasting theories, parallels, and suggested criminals. Perhaps members would care to pass it round.'
---------------------------------- MR CHITTERWICK'S CHART --------------
Solver - Motive - Angle of View - Salient Feature - Method of Proof - Parallel Case - Criminal
Sir Charles Wildman - Gain - Cui bono - Notepaper - Inductive - Marie Lefarge - Lady Pennefather
Mrs. Fielder-Flemming - Elimination - Cherchez la femme - Hidden Triangle - Intuitive and Inductive - Molineux - Sir Charles Wildman
Bradley (1) - Experiment - Detective-novelist's - Nitro-benzene - Scientific deduction - Dr. Wilson - Bradley
Bradley (2) - Jealousy - Character of Sir Eustace - Criminological knowledge of murderer - Deductive - Christina Edmunds - Woman unnamed
Sheringham - Gain - Character of Mr. Bendix - Bet - Deductive and Inductive - Carlyle Harris - Bendix
Miss Dammers - Elimination - Psychology of all participants - Criminal's character - Psychological deduction - Tawell - Sir Eustace Pennefather
Police - Conviction, or lust of killing - General - Material clues - Routine - Horwood - Unknown fanatic or lunatic
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