Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/105

Rh ture itself. I mean to say well—er—the fact is, or rather, the question is, can you write a reasonably convincing copy of that signature?"

I leaned over the paper again, to hide my face from his cork-screw little eyes. The situation, at every step, was getting more and still more interesting.

"Yes, I could do that name to a turn," I admitted. "But five or ten minutes' practise would make it safer, I suppose."

He wagged his bony head at my sagacity.

"The fact of your illness, of course, will make the situation a very much easier one to handle. A dying woman, you see, doesn't always write copper-plate."

I sat straight up.

"So I'm a dying woman, am I?" I asked, staring him straight in the eye.

"You are not, of course," he explained, "but the woman you are acting for may safely be presumed to be in that condition."

"And where is that woman?"

"Right here in this house."

"Then why can't she sign her own papers?"

Still again the barricaded look came in his shifty little eyes.