Pinned to the chalk line, Reginald forced out the truth. "The draft… was not sealed at the counting-house. Someone carried the die to the riverside printer under Blackfriars Bridge. The wax was stamped only tonight."
Mrs Crane went whiter still. "The die-case is locked at the firm on Lombard Street—the key hangs on Edmund's watch-chain alone." Watson felt a chill: if the living man still held that chain, he himself had borne the seal; if the chain was gone, someone's hand had been in his pockets.
Holmes folded the proof and looked into the thinning river fog. "The printer's type still leaves the dead man's line blank, but the die may yet be hot. Watson—we go. Before dawn fills the letters, we catch whoever still holds the seal." Beyond the side door the night wind brought a thread of resin and the reek of lead—as if a composing-room door had just opened onto the river.
❦ To be continued.
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