"What is it you wish, madame?" the Secretary inquired a trifle huskily;
his throat was becoming somewhat parched by the anxiety of the
situation.
"I see you have on your desk a small blue candle; employed, I assume,
for melting wax for your private seal," she went on. "May I trouble your
Excellency to light the aforesaid candle?"
The Secretary promptly struck a match, and managed with a most unsteady
hand to touch it to the wick.
As the flame flared up, she drew a narrow envelope from her bag and
tossed it on the desk before him.
"Now," said she, "will you be kind enough to look at the enclosure."
The Secretary took up the envelope and drew out the sheet. It was a
single sheet of the thinnest texture used for foreign correspondence. He
looked first at one side, then at the other.
"What do you see, sir?" she asked.
"The sheet is blank," he replied.
"Try the envelope," she recommended.
He turned it over. "It also is blank," he said.
"Sympathetic ink!" Carpenter laughed.
"Just what we are about to see, wise one!" she mocked. "Now, your
Excellency, will you place the envelope in the candle's flame?"
The Secretary took the envelope by the tip of one corner and held it in
the blaze until it was burned to his fingers--no writing was disclosed.
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