Mortimer Lightwood asked him, would he be so good as look at those notes? Handing him Eugene’s.

Having read the first few lines, Mr. Inspector mounted to that (for him) extraordinary pitch of emotion that he said, “Does either of you two gentlemen happen to have a pinch of snuff about him?” Finding that neither had, he did quite as well without it, and read on.

“Have you heard these read?” he then demanded of the honest man.

“No,” said Riderhood.

“Then you had better hear them.” And so read them aloud, in an official manner.

“Are these notes correct, now, as to the information you bring here and the evidence you mean to give?” he asked, when he had finished reading.