"Well, Carrie, one thing I have fixed on, and it is one of the things for which I have come up. I go to Scotland Yard to-morrow, tell them straight I am Reginald Davis, without a stain upon my character, explain to them that you were misled by a close resemblance. We will have that body exhumed. I am firmly convinced it was a murder."
"Let sleeping dogs lie, Reggie," advised Mrs. Masters, who had a horror of the law and its subtle ways. "Never mind who was the poor devil who was found there, whether he was murdered or committed suicide. It is no affair of yours."
"It is an affair of mine in this way," replied Davis in a dogged tone. "The person who murdered the poor devil, as you call him, knew something about me, and took a liberty with my name."
"It served you a good turn, Reggie, anyway."
"I know; I admit that. But the murderer did not know he was doing me, thanks to you, a good turn when he killed the other fellow."
Mrs. Masters thought deeply for a few moments. "Reggie, you have been a very bad egg, I am sure. I shall never guess a quarter of what you have been guilty of."
He laid his hand affectionately on her arm. "Well for you, old girl, you can't. That is all past and done with. By the way, that letter found on the poor chap, announcing his intention to commit suicide, did they ask you to identify my handwriting? Of course, the others addressed to him didn't matter much. Anybody could have written them. But my letter was a forgery. Did they ask you to identify that particular letter?"
"They did, Reggie, and my brain was in such a whirl that I could hardly read it. I said that I believed it was in your handwriting. It was certainly very like, although, as you can imagine, I looked at it through a sort of mist. Anyway, it was as like your handwriting as the dead man was like you." Davis ruminated for a few moments. "That letter was forged by somebody who knew me and could imitate my hand to a nicety. I am thinking of all the wrong'uns I knew in the old days. I think I can fix him."
"Yes," said Mrs. Masters breathlessly. She was capable of great daring in the cause and the service of those she loved, but she was not habituated to the ways of hardened criminals.
"A man I was a bit associated with in the old days; luckily he didn't drag me in far enough. He was an expert forger. We used to call him 'George the Penman.'"