“Look here,” broke in Crosby. “I’ve got a train to catch, and I’d almost forgotten—I want to have a look at that blotting-pad. I’ve got the copy, but I want to see the original.” The superintendent produced it. The lawyer took it to the light, pulled a big magnifying glass out a of his pocket, and examined it carefully. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “my guess is correct. Who made the copy?” “I did,” said Colson. “You’ve left out something. Look here—through my glass. Take that word ICES. Do you notice, first of all, that there’s a slightly bigger space between the E and the S than there is between the other letters?” “Y-e-s,” admitted the detective. “And can you see, with the help of the glass, anything between the E and the S?” “There’s the faintest little mark—not between them, but just over the space.” “Exactly. And that’s a comma—an apostrophe. It isn’t EZRA’S ICES at all; it’s EZRA, then three spaces, then ICE’S. The first space represents the division between the two words, so we want two letters before ICES. EZRA being a Christian name, it follows in all probability that the other is a surname. Now, what surnames of five letters end in ICE? Take the supposition first, that the second missing letter is a vowel. You might have ‘Daice,’ ‘Laice,’ ‘Maice’—they don’t look likely, eh?—or ‘Reice,’ or ‘Joice’—generally spelt with a ‘y’—or ‘Juice.’ I’ve tried every consonant as a first letter. Take consonants as the second letter, and put any vowels as the first, and you don’t make much either. But there are just two fairly common surnames that you can get by using two consonants as the first two letters, and they are ‘PRICE’ and ‘GRICE.’ If I were working on this clue, I should go for Ezra Price or Ezra Grice.” The three men followed him closely. “Now take the next two words, connected by the ‘&.’ I’ve only time to give you a hasty deduction. There are two words which would agree with the spaces in the first word—‘profession’ or ‘confession.’ ‘ROO’ is at the end of the line of writing. It has obviously only one letter in front of it, and one, or perhaps two, after it. I’ve tried every consonant as the first letter—with only one result. And I make the word ‘PROOF’ or ‘PROOFS.’ There you are—‘Ezra Price’s (or Grice’s) confession and proof.’ It looks interesting. Whoever it was to whom Templeton wrote that letter, he knew something about Ezra Price—or Grice.” “That looks feasible,” said the Chief Constable.