"
"I understand that now; but when did you first begin to suspect
Miss Howard?"
"When I discovered that she had told a lie at the inquest about
the letter she had received from Mrs. Inglethorp."
"Why, what was there to lie about?"
"You saw that letter? Do you recall its general appearance?"
"Yes--more or less."
"You will recollect, then, that Mrs. Inglethorp wrote a very
distinctive hand, and left large clear spaces between her words.
But if you look at the date at the top of the letter you will
notice that 'July 17th' is quite different in this respect. Do
you see what I mean?"
"No," I confessed, "I don't."
"You do not see that that letter was not written on the 17th, but
on the 7th--the day after Miss Howard's departure? The '1' was
written in before the '7' to turn it into the '17th'."
"But why?"
"That is exactly what I asked myself. Why does Miss Howard
suppress the letter written on the 17th, and produce this faked
one instead? Because she did not wish to show the letter of the
17th.
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