Examination
showed the safe to have been opened with the dexterity
that demands both time and coolness; and the ash from a
pipe knocked out against the wall at the side of the
passage offered ironical testimony to the comfort in
which the business had been done.
The lawyer gave these considerations their full weight,
and it was in dramatic contrast with the last of them
that he produced the first significant fragment of evidence
against Ormiston. There had been, after all, some hurry
of departure. It was shown by a sheet of paper bearing
the mark of a dirty thumb and a hasty boot-heel. bearing
also the combination formula for opening the safe.
The public was familiar with that piece of evidence; it
had gone through every kind of mill of opinion; it made
no special sensation. The evidence of the caretaker who
found the formula and of the witnesses who established
it to be in young Ormiston's handwriting, produced little
interest. Mr Cruickshank, in elaborating his theory as
to why with the formula in their hands the depredators
still found it necessary to pick the lock, offered nothing
to speculations already current--the duplicate key with
which they had doubtless been enabled to supply themselves
was a clumsy copy and had failed them; that conclusion
had been drawn commonly enough.
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