ading he turned back to read and re-read many pages, holding the
book to the light, and seeming to examine the contents very
curiously.

"Well?" said the Judge at last, when he met the General's eye.

"Do you lay great store by this evidence?" asked the General in a
calm, dispassionate voice.

"Is it not natural that we should? Is it not strongly,
conclusively incriminating?"

"It would be so, of course, if it were to be depended upon. But as
to that I have my doubts, and grave doubts."

"Bah!" interposed the detective; "that is mere conjecture, mere
assertion. Why should not the book be believed? It is perfectly
genuine--"

"Wait, sir," said the General, raising his hand. "Have you not
noticed--surely it cannot have escaped so astute a police
functionary--that the entries are not all in the same handwriting?"

"What! Oh, that is too absurd!" cried both the officials in a
breath.

They saw at once that if this discovery were admitted to be an
absolute fact, the whole drift of their conclusions must be
changed.

"Examine the book for yourselves. To my mind it is perfectly clear
and beyond all question," insisted Sir Charles. "I am quite
positive that the last pages were written by a different hand from
the first."

CHAPTER XIX

For several minutes both the Judge and the detective pored over
the note-book, examining page after page, shaking their heads, and
declining to accept the evidence of their eyes.

"I cannot see it," said the Judge at last; adding reluctantly, "No
doubt there is a difference, but it is to be explained."

"Quite so," put in M. Flocon. "When he wrote the early part, he
was calm and collected; the last entries, so straggling, so
ragged, and so badly written, were made when he was fresh from the
crime, excited, upset, little master of himself. Naturally he
would use a different hand."

"Or he would wish to disguise it. It was likely he would so wish,"
further remarked the Judge.

"You admit, then, that there is a difference?" argued the General,
shrewdly. "But there is more than a disguise. The best disguise
leaves certain unchangeable features. Some letters, capital G's,
H's, and others, will betray themselves through the best
disguise. I know what I am saying. I have studied the subject of
handwriting; it interests me. These are the work of two different
hands. Call in an expert; you will find I am right."

"Well, well," said the Judge, after a pause, "let us grant your
pos