Page:The Viaduct Murder (1926).pdf/219

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PROOF AT LAST
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"Probably not⁠—one can't be certain, but it didn't look like it."

"Well then, you've got to choose, it seems to me, between two possibilities. One is that this sheet of paper⁠—it's only a half-sheet in any case⁠—was blank until the cipher was written on it. Then it passed into Brotherhood's possession, and Brotherhood, looking about for a piece of paper to jot down a list on, found this one and used it."

"That's what I'd assumed."

"In that case, it's hard to see any special significance about the list, isn't it? It's not in Brotherhood's writing, apparently; but of course if he wrote it in the train, it's possible that his handwriting would be untraceable."

"What's the other possibility?"

"Why, just the other way round. That the list, whatever its meaning may be, was written on that piece of paper first. And then the murderer, wanting to send the cipher message to Brotherhood, took up that piece of paper at random to write it on, without noticing that there were already four words pencilled on the back."

"That's possible, certainly."

"Well, don't you see, in that case the list becomes very important, because it was written not by Brotherhood but by the murderer, and it may accidentally give us a clue to the murderer's character.

"A rather obscure clue. As far as I remember all it said was Socks, Vest, Hem, Tins."

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