When she had gone, the detective read the note again, then looked
at it and its envelope more closely. They had a strangely familiar
look.... Suddenly he jerked open a drawer of his desk, on which his new
noiseless typewriter stood, selected a sheet of plain white bond, and
rolled it into the machine. Quickly he tapped out a copy of the strange,
taunting message.
Yes! The left-hand margin was identical, the typing and its degree of
blackness were identical, and the paper on which he had made the copy
was exactly the same as that on which the original had been written.
The truth flashed into his mind. It was no coincidence that he had a
copy of the very book to which his unknown correspondent referred him.
For the note had been written in this very room, on stationery
conveniently at hand, on the noiseless typewriter which had been far
more considerate about not betraying the intruder than had the parrot
whose slumbers had been disturbed.
"But why did my unknown friend risk arrest as a burglar if he wanted to
give me an honest tip?" Dundee remarked aloud to the parrot, who croaked
an irrelevant answer:
"Bad Penny! Bad Penny!"
"I'm afraid, 'my dear Watson,' that those words will not be so helpful
in this case as they were when your mistress was murdered," Dundee
assured his parrot absently, for he was studying the peculiar situation
from every angle.
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