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out to Atwood, and signed. Made out for one hundred dollars. It was folded right back with the others, and anybody going through his pockets would be likely to miss it. Now, Colonel Barclay tells me you’re interested in handwriting, and ink, and so on, Mr. Gamadge.”
    â€œI am; trouble is, the handwriting and ink I’m interested in is usually from one to two hundred years old.”
    â€œDon’t say!” Mitchell looked disappointed. “My idea was that perhaps you could tell whether that cheque was made out last night. If it was, you could argue that the deceased meant to give it to Atwood, last night.”
    â€œYou could.” Gamadge looked round at the immaculate blotter on the desk, and the brand-new steel pen. Mitchell said:
    â€œThere ain’t a mark on that blotter, and no other blotter was in the room. He had a fountain pen—empty.”
    â€œOh. Well, Mitchell, there’s a faint, feeble possibility that I could tell you whether the ink on that cheque is Ocean House ink.”
    Mitchell’s eye lighted.
    â€œDon’t count on it. If I can, it will be a lucky break. And I have no materials here to work with.”
    â€œI’ll get ’em for you from Portland. The other request I have to make is this: You saw all these people, Mr. Gamadge; and you’re the only person outside the family, except Sam, that did see ‘em. I’d like to hear what you thought of ’em.”
    â€œThat’s a long order, on such a short acquaintance, I can tell you more or less what I thought of the boy himself; he was very attractive.”
    Mitchell raised his eyebrows. “Sam says he looked like a livin’ corpse.”
    â€œHis colour was startling, but otherwise he had a very attractive personality. His illness had warped him, I suppose; he was obviously spoiled; selfish, perhaps; self-indulgent; a trifle too used to having all the money in the outfit. But he had character. His illness hadn’t made him morbid, he wasn’t peevish, and he had (as you know already) physical and moral courage. I should say he was affectionate and generous to people he liked; and I should say he liked a good many people. I liked him, Mitchell. I hoped he’d get a little fun out of his money.”
    There was a pause. Then Mitchell said, woodenly: “Sheriff doesn’t like the job of asking these bereaved ladies questions.”
    â€œNo; very unpleasant. So he passed the buck to you.”
    â€œI don’t like it any better than he does.”
    â€œWhat questions do you want to ask them, anyway?”
    Mitchell glanced at him, glanced out of the window, and said: “There’ll be a post mortem.”
    â€œNaturally.”
    â€œWhat’s more, there’s a Doctor Ethelbert Baines in the hotel, and they say he’s a big man in New York.”
    â€œHe is. A very big man.”
    â€œHe’s a friend of the Cowdens. He’s going over to the Centre to check up on Cogswell’s findings.”
    â€œYou couldn’t have a better opinion.”
    â€œHe had to die sometime soon, they tell me,” continued Mitchell. “Nothing specially funny about his dying last night, after all he’d been through yesterday. He had a bad attack at Portsmouth.”
    Gamadge surveyed him for some moments in silence. Then, smiling faintly, he leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs, gazed at the ceiling, and said reflectively; “What if they find some ante-mortem bruises? Or what if they don’t? Having some imagination, it worries you a little to consider how soon he died after coming into his money. You can’t help realising that if he had lived only a short time longer, he would have been living among new friends, spending his fortune on them, perhaps even getting married. You reflect morosely on the fact that his sister is his sole heir, since he doesn’t seem to have got that will signed and witnessed. Is she his