An altogether new idea had occurred to Bagwax as he sat in his office after his interview with Sir John Joram;— and it was an idea of such a nature that he thought that he saw his way quite plain to a complete manifestation of the innocence of Caldigate, to a certainty of a pardon, and to an immediate end of the whole complication. By a sudden glance at the evidence his eye had caught an object which in all his glances he had never before observed. Then at once he went to work, and finding that certain little marks were distinctly legible, he became on a sudden violently hot,— so that the sweat broke out on his forehead. Here was the whole thing disclosed at once,— disclosed to all the world if he chose to disclose it. But if he did so, then there could not be any need for that journey to Sydney, which Sir John still thought to be expedient. And this thing which he had now seen was not one within his own branch of work,— was not a matter with which he was bound to be conversant. Somebody else ought to have found it out. His own knowledge was purely accidental. There would be no disgrace to him in not finding it out. But he had found it out.

Bagwax was a man who, in his official zeal and official capacity, had exercised his intellect far beyond the matters to which he was bound to apply himself in the mere performance of his duties. Post-marks were his business; and had he given all his mind to postmarks, he would have sufficiently carried out that great doctrine of doing the duty which England expects from every man. But he had travelled beyond postmarks, and had looked into many things. Among other matters he had looked into penny stamps, twopenny stamps, and other stamps. In post-office phraseology there is sometimes a confusion because the affixed effigy of her Majesty’s head, which represents the postage paid, is called a stamp, and the postmarks or impressions indicating the names of towns are also called stamps. Those postmarks or impressions had been the work of Bagwax’s life; but his zeal, his joy in his office, and the general energy of his disposition, had opened up to him also all the mysteries of the queen’s heads. That stamp, that effigy, that twopenny queen’s-head, which by its presence on the corner of the envelope purported to have been the price of conveying the letter from Sydney to Nobble, on 10th May, 1873, had certainly been manufactured and sent out to the colony since that date!

There are signs invisible to ordinary eyes which are plain as the sun at noonday to the initiated. It is so in all arts, in all sciences. Bagwax was at once sure of his fact. To his instructed gaze the little receipt for twopence was as clearly dated as though the figures were written on it. And yet he had never looked at it before. In the absorbing interest which the postmark had created,— that fraudulent postmark as it certainly was,— he had never condescended to examine the postage-stamp. But now he saw and was certain.

If it was so,— and he had no doubt,— then would Caldigate surely be released. It is hoped that the reader will follow the mind of Bagwax, which was in this matter very clear. This envelope had been brought up at the trial as evidence that, on a certain day, Caldigate had written to the woman as his wife, and had sent the letter through the post-office. For such sending the postage-stamp was necessary. The postage-stamp had certainly been put on when the envelope was prepared for its intended purpose. But if it could be proved by the stamp itself that it had not been in existence on the date impressed on the envelope, then the fraud would be quite apparent. And if there had been such fraud, then would the testimony of all those four witnesses be crushed into arrant perjury. They had produced the fraudulent document, and by it would be thoroughly condemned There could be no necessity for a journey to Sydney.

As it all became clear to his mind, he thumped his table partly in triumph,— partly in despair. ‘What’s the matter with you now?’ said Mr. Curlydown. It was a quarter past four, and Curlydown had not completed his daily inspections. Had Bagwax been doing his proper share of work, Curlydown would have already washed his hands and changed his coat, and have been ready to start for the 4.30 train. As it was, he had an hour of labour before him, and would be unable to count the plums upon his wall, as was usual with him before dinner.

‘It becomes more wonderful every day,’ said Bagwax solemnly,— almost awfully.

‘It is very wonderful to me that a man should be able to sit so many hours looking at one dirty bit of paper.’

‘Every moment that I pass with that envelope before my eyes I see the innocent husband in jail, and the poor afflicted wife weeping in her solitude.’

‘You’ll be going on to the stage, Bagwax, before this is done.’

‘I have sometimes thought that it was the career for which I was best adapted. But, as to the envelope, the facts are now certain.’

‘Any new facts?’ asked Curlydown. But he asked the question in a jeering tone, not at all as though desiring confidence or offering sympathy.

‘Yes,’ replied Bagwax, slowly. ‘The facts are certainly new,— and most convincing; but as you have not given attention to the particular branch concerned there can be no good in my mentioning them. You would not understand me.’ It was thus that he revenged himself on Curlydown. Then there was again silence between them for a quarter of an hour, during which Curlydown was hurrying through his work, and Bagwax was meditating whether it was certainly his duty to make known the facts as to the postage-stamp. ‘You are so unkind,’ said Bagwax at last, in a tone of injured friendship, burning to tell his new discovery.

‘You have got it all your way,’ said Curlydown, without lifting his head. ‘And then, as you said just now,— I don’t understand.’

‘I’d tell you everything if you’d only be a little less hard.’

Curlydown was envious. He had, of course, been told of the civil things which Sir John Joram had said; and though he did not quite believe all, he was convinced that Bagwax was supposed to have distinguished himself. If there was anything to be known he would like to know it. Nor was he naturally quarrelsome. Bagwax was his old friend. ‘I don’t mean to be hard,’ he said. ‘Of course one does feel oneself fretted when one has been obliged to miss two trains.’

‘Can I lend a hand?’ said Bagwax.

‘It doesn’t signify now. I can’t catch anything before the 5.20. One does expect to get away a little earlier than that on a Saturday. What is it that you’ve found out?’

‘Do you really care to know?’

‘Of course I do,— if it’s anything in earnest. I took quite as much interest as you in the matter when we were down at Cambridge.’

‘You see that postage-stamp?’ Bagwax stretched out the envelope,— or rather the photograph of the envelope, for it was no more. But the Queen’s head, with all its obliterating smudges, and all its marks and peculiarities, were to be seen quite as plainly as on the original, which was tied up carefully among the archives of the trial. ‘You see that postage-stamp Curlydown took his glass, and looked at the document, and declared that he saw the postage-stamp very plainly.

‘But it does not tell you anything particular?’

‘Nothing very particular — at the first glance,’ said Curlydown, gazing through the glass with all his eyes.

‘Look again.’

‘I see that they obliterate out there with a kind of star.’

‘That has nothing to do with it.’

‘The bunch of hair at the back of the head isn’t quite like our bunch of hair.’

‘Just the same;— taken from the same die,’ said Bagwax.

‘The little holes for dividing the stamps are bigger.’

‘It isn’t that.’

‘Then what the d —— is it?’

‘There are letters at every corner,’ said Bagwax.

‘That’s of course,’ said Curlydown.

‘Can you read those letters?’ Curlydown owned that he never had quite understood what those letters meant. ‘Those two P’s in the two bottom corners tell me that that stamp wasn’t printed before ‘74. It was all explained to me not long ago. Now the postmark is dated ‘73.’ There was an air of triumph about Bagwax as he said this which almost drove Curlydown back to hostility. But he checked himself merely shaking his head, and continued to look at the stamp. ‘What do you think of that?’ asked Bagwax.

‘You’d have to prove it.’

‘Of course I should. But the stamps are made here and are sent out to the colony. I shall see Smithers at the stamp-office on Monday of course.’ Mr. Smithers was a gentleman concerned in the manufacture of stamps. ‘But I know my facts. I am as well aware of the meaning of those letters as though I had made postage-stamps my own peculiar duty. Now what ought I to do?’

‘You wouldn’t have to go, I suppose?’

‘Not a foot.’

‘And yet it ought to be found out how that date got there.’ And Curlydown put his finger upon the impression — 10th May, 1873.

‘Not a doubt about it. I should do a deal of good by going if they’d give me proper authority to overhaul everything in the office out there. They had the letter stamped fraudulently;— fraudulently, Mr. Curly down I Perhaps if I stayed at home to give evidence, they’d send you to Sydney to find all that out.’

There was a courtesy in this suggestion which induced Curlydown to ask his junior to come down and take pot-luck at Apricot Villa. Bagwax was delighted, for his heart had been sore at the coolness which had grown u............