"No, I didn't mean that. But if there is any way in which it can be kept
quiet please take it."

"That will depend on Braden," Angus replied. "Anyway, I'll see Judge
Riley the first thing to-morrow."

In the morning they entered Judge Riley's office before the judge had
lighted his first pipe. He listened to Turkey's story, puffing hard,
occasionally rumpling his gray mane.

"I knew it," he said. "I knew that some time Braden would put his foot
outside the law. Your potential law-breaker merely waits for an
opportunity which he thinks is safe. Braden thought he was safe enough,
and he is a pretty cautious individual. It is one thing to be morally
sure that he committed forgery and another to prove it. Now, let's see
what evidence we have to go on."

He spread out both sets of documents on his desk and studied them
intently.

"Both," he observed after an interval, "are in my opinion actually
signed by Braden and French--one as grantor and the other as witness. I
know their signatures very well. The notarial certificate of execution
is not material, because it is separate, and could easily have been
detached from the originals and attached to the others."

"Your theory is that the deeds delivered by French to your wife were
prepared recently. Let us see if we can find anything in the deeds
themselves to corroborate that. They are on identical legal forms, and
seem to have been written on the same machine, for the same letters show
poor alignment, and the face of one, the small 'c' appears to have been
injured. Let me see: I have some old letters of Braden's."

Rising he took down an old letter file and searched through it, finally
removing a letter.

"This, like these deeds, is dated some seven years ago, and was written
in Braden's office. It exhibits the same peculiarities of type."

"Well, wouldn't that show that both deeds were drawn seven years ago?"
Angus deduced in disappointment, for so far the judge's words were not
encouraging.

"Not as bad as that. It would show merely that both were prepared on a
machine owned by Braden seven years ago. Here are other letters from
him, written on another and presumably more modern machine. He may have
the old one yet. It merely points to careful preparation--painstaking
forgery. But Turkey, here, cannot testify positively that Braden was
carrying a machine in the case that night, nor did he see him write
anything on a machine. He cannot identify the machine that