“Then you know the words on the paper⁠—by rote?”

“Yes, sir,” said Cicely, uncertain of where this was leading.

“I will ask you, then, to take this paper and pencil, your own pencil and write the same words in the same way once more.”

“Oh, don’t ask me to do that!” implored Cicely, clasping her hands and looking very distressed.

“I not only ask you, but I direct you to do it, and do it at once.”

An attendant handed pencil and paper to Cicely, and, after a glance at Carleton, who did not meet it, she began to write.

Though evidently agitated, she wrote clearly and evenly, and the paper she handed to Coroner Benson a moment later was practically an exact duplicate of the one found on the library table.