“The young man couldn’t have slipped something into a drawer the night before?”
I shook my head.
“I should have seen him.”
“Could it have been your precious piece of paper they were looking for?”
“It might have been, but it seems rather senseless. It was only a time and a date—and they were both past by then.”
Suzanne nodded.
“That’s so of course. No, it wasn’t the paper. By the way, have you got it with you? I’d rather like to see it.”
I had brought the paper with me as exhibit A, and I handed it over to her. She scrutinized it, frowning.
“There’s a dot after the 17. Why isn’t there a dot after the 1 too?”
“There’s a space,” I pointed out.
“Yes, there’s a space, but—”
Suddenly she rose and peered at the paper, holding it as close under the light as possible. There was a repressed excitement in her manner.
“Anne, that isn’t a dot! That’s a flaw in the paper! A flaw in the paper, you see? So you’ve got to ignore it, and just go by the spaces—the spaces!”
I had risen and was standing by her. I read out the figures as I now saw them.
“1 71 22.”