slowly.
He saw something more than that handful of ashes, he saw the deadly peril in which his friend was standing.

Here was one half of the evidence in Lexman's favour gone, irredeemably.
"The letter was written on a paper which was specially prepared by a chemical process which disintegrated the moment the paper was exposed to the air.

Probably if you delayed putting the letter in the drawer another five minutes, you would have seen it burn before your eyes.

As it was, it was smouldering before you had turned the key of the box.

The envelope!" "Kara burnt it," said Lexman in a low voice, "I remember seeing him take it up from the table and throw it in the fire." T.X.