The Chapters

When Mary woke, the rain had stopped. The train was running slowly between black fields, and now and then a light showed in a window and was gone. She had slept with her cheek against the glass and there was a cold round mark on it.

"Sit up," said Mrs. Medlock. "We're nearly there."

Mary sat up and looked at the other passengers, who were collecting their parcels and reaching for things on the racks. She had no parcel to collect. Mrs. Medlock had charge of everything belonging to her, and this made her feel more like a piece of luggage than ever.

The train gave a little jerk and stopped beside a low platform. There were only two lamps upon it, and the wet boards shone beneath them. A porter came past the window with a barrow, and behind him Mary saw a tall man standing quite still. His coat was dark and its collar was turned up. One of his shoulders seemed higher than the other.

Mrs. Medlock saw him, too. She rose so suddenly that she knocked her bonnet against the rack.

"Well, I never!" she said under her breath. "Mr. Craven!"

The man came to the carriage door while she was still gathering Mary's things. When the porter opened it, he stood aside and looked in. Mary could not see his face clearly until she had climbed down. It was a thin face with dark eyes and a tired, drawn look about the mouth. His back was indeed crooked, though it was not at all like the back of the little man in the French fairy story. Mary was disappointed to discover that a person she had thought of as belonging in a book looked so much like an ordinary unhappy man.

"This is Miss Lennox, sir," said Mrs. Medlock.

Mr. Craven looked at Mary. He did not hold out his hand.

"The carriage is waiting," he said.

He turned and walked down the platform. Mrs. Medlock followed him, and Mary followed Mrs. Medlock. She wondered whether he had come to look at her, and whether he thought her as plain as the others had done. She had no means of finding out, for he did not look at her again. He spoke to the porter about a trunk and then went on ahead of them into the dark.

The carriage was shut in, and its lamps made two small yellow patches on the road. Mr. Craven took the seat facing the horses. Mrs. Medlock sat beside Mary and drew a rug over their knees. They drove through a village in which several windows were lighted, but it was soon left behind. Mary pressed her face near the glass. There was little to see except the moving light upon the road and, once, a crooked tree which appeared for a moment and vanished.

"You'll be across the moor presently," Mrs. Medlock told her.

"What is it?" Mary asked.

"The moor? You'll see it well enough by daylight. There's miles of it."

Mary did not want to tell her that she could see nothing at all. She watched Mr. Craven instead, or as much of him as she could make out. He had leaned back in his corner and closed his eyes. She could not be sure whether he was asleep. The carriage rocked and rattled, and the sound of the wheels seemed louder because no one spoke. Mrs. Medlock had talked all through the railway journey, but in Mr. Craven's presence she sat with her hands folded and her lips firmly together.

After a time the road began to rise. The horses went more slowly. The windows were so dark that Mary could see the pale shape of her own face in one of them, and beyond it nothing. Then a gust struck the carriage with such force that she drew back.

"Is it always so windy?" she asked.

"Often enough," Mrs. Medlock said.

Mr. Craven opened his eyes, though Mary had not thought he was listening. He looked out of the window and said nothing.

The carriage stopped with a jolt. One horse stamped and gave a frightened snort. The driver called out to it, and they heard him climb down. A lantern swung past the window.

"What's wrong?" Mrs. Medlock called.

"Summat i' t' road," the driver answered. "I'll shift it."

Mrs. Medlock lowered the window a little, but the wind blew damp air into her face and she pulled it up again. Mary could see the lantern moving to and fro. Its light fell upon a patch of white wool. A sheep stood in the road, turning its head foolishly toward the horses whenever the driver tried to drive it away.

"It has no sense," Mary said.

"No more than most sheep," said Mrs. Medlock.

The driver went round it, and the lantern disappeared for a moment. Mary opened the carriage door. Mrs. Medlock caught at the rug.

"Where are you going?"

"I want to see."

"You can see from here."

"I can't," said Mary, and stepped down before Mrs. Medlock could stop her.

Her foot sank a little into wet earth beside the road. She had thought the moor might be a sort of field, but standing upon it in the dark she could not tell where the ground ended. It seemed to go on in every direction. The wind pressed her dress against her legs and brought her a smell she did not know, cold and sharp, with something of rain and crushed plants in it. Far off she heard a bird give one short call.

She stood there for about a minute. No one came to fetch her. The lantern showed the driver at last getting behind the sheep and urging it toward the rough ground. It bounded away, stopped to look back, and was lost in the darkness. Mary wished she could have seen where it went.

"Get in, young miss," said the driver. "We'll be off."

Mary climbed back into the carriage. Mrs. Medlock shut the door hard and tucked the rug round herself.

"You'll catch your death doing such things," she said. "There's water everywhere after that rain."

Mary said nothing. She had felt the wet earth under her shoe, and she was thinking of the enormous dark place which had been all round her. It had not seemed like a field. There had been no walls that she could see and no houses with lights in them. Even in India she had never stood in a place which made her feel so small.

The horses started again. Mr. Craven sat in the same position as before, but his eyes were open. He looked at Mary for an instant and then turned toward the window. She drew the rug from her knees because she was annoyed with Mrs. Medlock, though she was cold.

It seemed a long time before the carriage slowed again. A great dark building rose before them, and light shone through a few of its windows. The wheels sounded differently as they passed beneath an arch and came to a stop before a broad flight of stone steps. Mary could not see how far the building went in either direction. She saw only its heavy door and the lamps on each side of it.

A servant opened the door as they came up. Inside was a large hall with a stone floor, dark panels, and a fire burning at the far end. Mary had never seen such a hall. There were pictures hanging high upon the walls, and the faces in them appeared to be looking down at her as she crossed the floor. Her shoes made small sounds upon the stone.

Mr. Craven gave his coat to the servant.

"Mrs. Medlock will see to you," he said to Mary.

Then he went up the staircase without waiting for an answer. Mary watched him until he turned out of sight. That was all he had said to her since meeting her at the station. She did not know why he had come himself if he had no wish to speak to her.

"Come along," said Mrs. Medlock. "Your room's ready, and you'll have your supper there."

They went up another staircase and along passages in which their footsteps made scarcely any sound because there were thick carpets on the floors. Now and then they passed a closed door. One passage had so many doors that Mary began to count them, but Mrs. Medlock turned a corner before she had finished. The house was warmer than the moor, yet there were places in it where the air felt cold upon her face.

"You are to keep to this part of the house," Mrs. Medlock said. "I told you on the train that there are rooms you mustn't go into."

"I remember," said Mary.

"Then you needn't be told twice."

They entered a bedroom where a fire had been laid and lighted. There was a high bed with curtains drawn back from it, a chest of drawers, and a washstand with a white jug and basin. A candle burned on a table beside the bed. Mary's small trunk stood near the door. Mrs. Medlock looked round to make certain everything was in its place, and seemed satisfied.

A boy came to carry in coal, and after him a manservant brought a tray covered with a cloth. He was a broad-shouldered man with sandy hair and a face red from the cold. He set the tray on the table, lifted the cloth, and showed Mary a dish of hot broth, bread, and a little pudding.

"T' broth's fair warm yet," he said. "Tha'd best sup it afore it goes cowd. An' if tha wants owt else, tha mun ring."

Mary stared at him. Some of the words sounded like English, but they did not seem to fit together.

"I don't understand what you are saying," she said.

"He says you must eat while it's hot, and ring if you want anything," Mrs. Medlock told her. "His name is William."

"Why doesn't he say that, then?" asked Mary.

"I did say it, miss," William answered. He looked surprised, but he did not appear angry. "It's plain enough i' these parts."

Mary thought it anything but plain. She sat down at the table without looking at him again. In India she had never had to ask twice for what she wanted, and she disliked being the person who did not understand. William went out, and Mrs. Medlock busied herself with opening the trunk.

Mary meant to eat very little, because she had decided that she did not like Misselthwaite Manor. The broth was hot, however, and she had been cold since she got out upon the moor. She finished it and ate some of the bread. Mrs. Medlock noticed, but made no remark.

When Mary had changed into her nightgown, Mrs. Medlock took away the empty dishes and returned with a pitcher of fresh water. She showed Mary where the bell was and how to turn down the lamp. Mary had always had some one to do these things for her. Mrs. Medlock spoke as though there could be no difficulty in doing them oneself, and Mary would sooner have bitten her tongue than admit there was.

"You'll sleep well enough," the housekeeper said. "You've had a long day."

She was putting the things in the trunk away when Mary heard a sound. It was faint at first, and she thought it came from the wind outside. Then there was a dull knock somewhere beyond the room, followed by a long, low sound which seemed to pass along the passage and die away.

"What was that?" she said.

Mrs. Medlock stopped with a folded dress in her hands. She listened for a moment.

"The wind," she answered. "It gets through an old house like this and makes all manner of noises."

"But that was inside."

"Sound carries through the passages. You'll get used to it."

She shut the drawer rather sharply. Mary waited to hear the noise again, but there was only the stirring of the fire and the wind against the window. Mrs. Medlock took up the tray and went to the door.

"Put out the candle when you're ready. Good night."

"Good night," said Mary.

The door closed, and she heard Mrs. Medlock's steps going away. Mary turned down the lamp and climbed into the high bed. The sheets were cold at first. She lay still until they grew warm round her, watching the last little glimmer from the fire.

Presently it sank, and the room was dark. Wind could certainly make noises. She had heard it in the carriage, and she heard it now at the window. But the knock had seemed to come from somewhere far within the house. She remembered the passage with all its closed doors and wondered how many other passages there were.

Then the low sound came again. Mary lifted her head from the pillow and listened until it had gone. Mrs. Medlock had said it was the wind, but Mrs. Medlock had not seemed pleased when she asked about it. Mary lay awake in the dark and decided that she would find out for herself what it was.

The book was not reassuring. I read the account through twice, and on the second occasion found myself paying less attention to the symptoms than to the time which might elapse before they appeared. I had hoped for a plain statement that would settle the matter. Instead, every fresh paragraph suggested some difficulty which the preceding one had concealed.

I shut the book and replaced it on the shelf. Whatever the doctors might discover, Poirot would wish to see the room before the household had begun to put it to rights. I went out quietly by the front door.

The air was cool, though the sky still had the heavy look which had threatened us the evening before. I was halfway down the drive when I saw a figure coming towards me. It was Alfred Inglethorp. He walked with his head bent, and did not notice me until we were almost face to face.

"Mr. Inglethorp!"

He started. "Ah, Mr. Hastings. You are out early."

"Have you heard what has happened?"

His hand closed upon the handle of the little bag he carried.

"What has happened?"

"Mrs. Inglethorp was taken ill in the night. The doctors came, but they could do nothing. She is dead."

For a moment he stood looking at me. Then he passed a hand across his forehead.

"Dead? Emily is dead?"

"I am sorry to have to tell you."

He made no answer. I thought he was about to turn and run up the drive, but he remained where he was, staring past me towards the house. At last he said, in a low voice:

"I was not there."

"No. We were surprised to find your room empty."

"I can explain. I went with Dr. Bauerstein as far as the village, as you know. Afterwards I walked on for some time. When I came back, I found I had lost my latch-key. I did not wish to wake Emily, particularly after the unpleasantness of yesterday." He glanced quickly at me. "I went round to the stables. Baily let me into the harness-room, and I slept there."

"You spent the whole night there?"

"Until it was light enough to go out. I took a walk before breakfast. Had I known she was ill, nothing would have kept me away."

He spoke with feeling, and I was ashamed of the thought which had prompted my question. Yet it was strange that he had heard no commotion when Baily went for the doctor.

"I must go to the house," he said. "Does John know?"

"Everyone knows by now."

He hurried past me. I stood watching until he disappeared round the bend of the drive, then continued towards the village. I could do nothing for him, and it was more important than ever that Poirot should come at once.

I found him at the gate of the cottage where he lodged. He wore a neat grey suit, and was examining with grave attention a rose-bush which had been trained against the wall. At sight of me he came forward.

"My friend Hastings. I was expecting you."

"You know, then?"

"Dr. Bauerstein told me as he passed here on his way home. He said that Madame Inglethorp had died, and that he could not yet give a certificate."

I was disappointed to have been forestalled. I had imagined myself conveying news of a startling character, and Poirot received me as calmly as though I had come to report a change in the weather.

"John Cavendish has asked me to fetch you," I said. "The doors of her room have been locked. He has the keys."

"Good. We will go." He turned towards the cottage, then paused. "You have seen Mr. Inglethorp?"

"He passed me on the drive just now. He says he spent the night in the harness-room at Styles."

Poirot looked at me for a second.

"And Baily let him in?"

"That is what he says. He had lost his latch-key."

"Come, then."

He went indoors to fetch his hat. We set off at a pace which obliged me to lengthen my stride. For some time he said nothing. His silence irritated me a little, for I had much to tell him and did not know where to begin.

"Dr. Bauerstein suspects poison," I said at last.

"That I gathered from what he told me."

"I found a medical book before I came out. The description of strychnine poisoning is remarkably like what we saw."

"Did you see the beginning of the attack?"

"No. Lawrence woke me when it was already in progress."

"Then tell me what you saw, and leave the book out of it."

I gave him an account of the scene as carefully as I could, from Lawrence's appearance at my bedside to the departure of the doctors. Poirot interrupted only to establish where each of us had stood when the door gave way. I described Mrs. Inglethorp's terrible convulsions, and repeated her last words.

"'Alfred, Alfred,'" he said thoughtfully. "You are sure those were the words?"

"Quite sure. She looked straight at Dr. Bauerstein as she said them."

"That is interesting."

"You cannot think she mistook the doctor for her husband?"

"I do not know what she thought, Hastings."

We had reached the lodge gates. The drive seemed unusually long in the morning light. Somewhere behind the trees a bird was singing, and the sound jarred upon me. I remembered how eagerly I had come to Styles for rest, only a fortnight before.

John met us in the hall. He looked worn and had plainly not slept since his mother's death, but he welcomed Poirot courteously.

"I am obliged to you for coming. I have done as the doctors wished. No one has been allowed into either room."

He handed over the two keys. Poirot examined them, and asked whether anything had been moved before Dr. Bauerstein locked the doors. John told him of the brandy, the attempts to make his mother comfortable, and the sheet which the doctors had drawn over her after we had gone downstairs. Poirot listened without making a note.

"Where is Mr. Inglethorp?" he asked.

"In the morning-room. He arrived a little while ago. He says he spent the night in the harness-room. I confess I should have thought Baily would have told us when he came up for the doctor."

"May I speak with Baily?"

John sent a maid for him. We waited in the hall, where I could see the morning-room door at the far end of the passage. It remained closed.

Baily came in looking uncomfortable. He was a broad-shouldered man, with the air of one who expected to be blamed for whatever had gone wrong.

"Mr. Inglethorp tells us you let him sleep in the harness-room last night," said Poirot. "At what hour was that?"

Baily stared. "I never let him in, sir."

"You did not see him?"

"Not last night, sir. I locked the harness-room at nine, same as always. The key was in my pocket till I opened it this morning. When they sent me for the doctor, I took the car straight out."

John's face changed. Poirot asked Baily to repeat the times, but learned nothing further. When the man had gone, John took a step towards the morning-room.

"I had better clear this up."

"Later, if you please," said Poirot. "There may be some simple mistake about the place. I should like to see the bedroom first."

John stopped. I could see that he disliked leaving such a statement unchallenged, but he turned towards the stairs and led the way.

On the landing we met Mary Cavendish with Cynthia. In daylight the girl looked little better than she had when Mary brought her into Mrs. Inglethorp's room. Her hair was hastily arranged, and she held a hand to her forehead as if the light troubled her. Mary introduced Poirot, whom Cynthia appeared not to remember seeing in the village.

He regarded her with a gentle expression.

"Miss Murdoch, when Mrs. Cavendish came to wake you, had you been asleep all through the night?"

"Yes," said Cynthia. "I went to bed early and never woke until Mary shook me. Even then I could hardly understand what she was saying."

Poirot thanked her. He put no further question to the girl. Mary took her arm, and they went down the stairs together. I watched Mary for a moment. She had recovered her composure since our conversation after the doctors left us, though she avoided my eyes.

At the end of the passage John showed Poirot the door of his mother's room. The woodwork bore no marks of our struggle, for we had entered by the connecting door from Alfred's room. Poirot unlocked it and went in. John and I followed.

The gas had been turned off. A band of sunlight lay across the carpet between the curtains, and in that light the disorder of the room seemed worse than it had by candlelight. The small table beside the bed lay on its side. A book and two or three other things had fallen from it. Mrs. Inglethorp's coffee-cup stood upon the mantelpiece, where someone must have put it out of the way. On the bed the sheet rose in a still outline. I looked away.

Poirot remained just inside the door. His eyes travelled slowly round the room. He asked John to show him which door had been bolted when we arrived. Then he crossed to the connecting door and inspected its damaged frame. A piece of wood hung loose near the lock.

"It cost us some trouble to get through," said John.

"So I see."

Poirot tried the handle of the door leading to Cynthia's room. It did not give. John explained that it was always bolted on that side and that they had found it so in the morning. Poirot nodded, but made no comment. He then went to the windows, parted the curtains and examined the fastenings. I stood beside the overturned table, conscious that I was of no use to him.

He came back across the room and looked at the little clock on the mantelpiece. Its hands pointed to twenty minutes past five. John told him that it had stopped during the night; neither of us could say whether it had been going when Mrs. Inglethorp was taken ill.

"I think I should like to work here for a while with Hastings," said Poirot. "May we have the room to ourselves?"

"Certainly. I shall be downstairs."

John went out. Poirot turned the key in the door behind him. The sound was a small one, but it brought back with uncomfortable force our efforts to break into the room a few hours earlier.

Poirot did not begin at once. He stood looking at the bed, then at the fallen table. At length he bent and picked up each of the objects on the carpet, replacing them exactly where he had found them after he had examined them. I saw a book, a handkerchief, and a silver-framed photograph. There was nothing to reward his patience.

He knelt to look beneath the table. Presently he drew out a narrow strip of brown paper, folded twice upon itself. It was scarcely longer than my thumb, and one end had been pierced by a pin. He held it in the light from the window, turning it over without opening the folds.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Paper," he replied.

"I can see that."

He smiled faintly and laid it upon the mantelpiece while he searched the space beneath the bed. Then he went to the fireplace. The ashes were cold. He studied the grate, but touched nothing there.

"What did Lawrence see?" he asked suddenly.

I started. "See? When?"

"When you entered. You told me that he stared at the far wall and that his face became white. What was before him?"

"The fireplace, chiefly. I looked myself. There were the ashes and those ornaments. Nothing else that I noticed."

"And his candle?"

"He was holding it. The wax was falling on the carpet."

"Where did he stand?"

I placed myself near the door through which we had broken. Poirot moved to my side and looked towards the fireplace. In the full daylight it was impossible to recover the dim view we had had upon entering. I said so. He agreed, and to my surprise closed the curtains until only a little light came through. From where I stood I could distinguish the pale shapes of the ornaments, but not their details.

"It was darker than this," I said. "Lawrence had the candle. John lit the gas almost at once."

Poirot opened the curtains again. He made a circuit of the room, pausing at Mrs. Inglethorp's desk and the despatch-case which rested beside it. He did not try the case. I remembered her asking Cynthia to bring it to her, and wondered whether she had opened it before she went to bed. Poirot merely observed that it was shut.

"What about the coffee?" I asked. "It was on the mantelpiece when we came in, I think."

"You think?"

"I cannot swear to it. I was looking at Mrs. Inglethorp."

"That is natural."

He examined the cup where it stood, without lifting it. I was about to repeat what I knew of Alfred carrying it to the boudoir, but Poirot had already turned back to the floor beside the table. He crouched there so long that I began to suspect he had found another object. When he rose, his hand was empty.

The rest of the morning passed in a succession of small inquiries which seemed to lead nowhere. Poirot spoke to Dorcas in the passage about the condition of the room when she had last seen it. He learned that Mrs. Inglethorp had sent for her despatch-case and had afterwards given no orders. He asked Annie where she had put the brandy when she brought it up. She showed him the spot just inside the doorway. Neither servant had seen the strip of paper.

We went downstairs for a little while. John offered us breakfast, but I had no appetite. Poirot ate a boiled egg with considerable attention. Alfred Inglethorp came out of the morning-room as we were finishing. His eyes were red, and he spoke to John in a subdued voice about the arrangements that must be made. Poirot rose and bowed to him. No one mentioned Baily.

At a quarter past eleven Poirot asked John for the keys again. We went back to Mrs. Inglethorp's room, and this time Poirot locked the door as soon as we were inside. The house was quiet. I could hear a distant cart upon the road and, nearer at hand, the faint ticking of my watch.

The folded strip of paper still lay where Poirot had placed it. He took it up and showed it to me on his open palm. One fold was flattened more sharply than the other. I could make nothing of it.

"You are going to tell me what you have found?" I said.

"Not yet, Hastings."

He set the paper on the little desk between us. I looked from it to the overturned table, then to the closed door. Poirot followed my glance and shook his head.

"You have made the same mistake as I did when I first saw it," he said. "You have supposed that the pin was put through the paper."

I had copied the printed number of Willsson’s five-thousand-dollar check stub before putting the book back in his desk. I took the number to the First National Bank.

The bank had a stone front, brass doors, and a guard who looked at my shoes before he looked at my face. Inside, the assistant cashier looked at both. His name was Cale. I showed him my agency card and told him why I wanted to know about a check drawn by Donald Willsson the day before.

“Mr. Willsson is dead,” Cale said.

“That’s why I’m here.”

He read the number I had written on the back of an envelope.

“What makes you think he issued it?”

“I saw the stub.”

“A stub doesn’t prove a check was delivered.”

“No. Can you tell me whether this one was?”

He held the envelope by one corner and studied me over it. He was a tidy man with a crease in each cheek, as if he spent part of every day refusing things politely.

“What is your connection with the family?”

“Donald Willsson hired my agency. Somebody killed him before he could tell me what he wanted done.”

“I know nothing about that.”

“I didn’t expect you to. I want to know if this check came through the bank.”

He went through a door at the rear. I sat on a bench under a clock and watched men put money through little windows. A woman counted bills twice before she left one of the windows. The clock gave Cale eleven minutes. Then he came back with my envelope.

“The check has never been presented,” he said. “It hasn’t been certified, either.”

“You’re sure of both?”

“I checked the number and the amount. There’s no record of its presentation or certification.”

“Could he have got the money here himself?”

“Not with that check.”

“Could he have had it certified someplace else?”

“Only this bank could certify a check drawn on us.”

He handed back the envelope. I asked whether Willsson had been in the bank shortly before three yesterday afternoon.

“I couldn’t tell you that.”

“You couldn’t, or you won’t?”

“I didn’t see him. That’s all I can say.”

“Who did?”

“I don’t know that anybody did.”

I asked whether the check could have been stopped.

“It could have been, if it had been issued. It hasn’t been presented, so the question hasn’t arisen.”

He looked past me toward the brass doors. I had got what I came for. I thanked him and went out.

Willsson had written five thousand dollars on a stub and left his office for twenty minutes. The money was still in the bank. He might have put the check in somebody’s hand, torn it up, or carried it to Hurricane Street. I had no reason to choose one of those.

I went to Hurricane Street.

There were two small fresh scars in the wall opposite the alley. Somebody had dug the bullets out. The alley was narrow enough for a man to stand in it without showing much of himself to the street. Its mouth gave him a view of the sidewalk where Willsson had fallen. It also gave anybody on that sidewalk a fair chance to see him, if he stepped into the light.

I crossed and looked back. A man coming down the street would have to be near the alley before he saw into it. A man standing still would have had time to look.

Willsson had agreed over the telephone to be somewhere at ten. He had been shot at ten-forty. If Hurricane Street was where he had agreed to go, I wanted to know what had occupied him for forty minutes. The two holes in the wall couldn’t tell me. Neither could the alley. I stayed there until I had learned the size of the place and then took a car back toward the hotel.

The clerk at the Great Western stopped me as I crossed the lobby.

“There’s a lady waiting for you upstairs,” he said.

“Who let her upstairs?”

“She said she was Mrs. Willsson.”

“That answers who she is.”

“She wouldn’t wait down here.”

I went up. My door was shut. She sat in a chair at the far end of the hall, where she could see both the stairs and the elevator. She wore a dark suit and black shoes. Her face had more color than it had had when she came home the night before, but she held her gloves so tightly that the fingers were twisted together.

“I didn’t ask you to come,” I said.

“I know.”

I opened the door. She walked past me and took the chair beside the window. I left the door open until an elevator boy had gone by. Then I closed it and sat on the bed.

“Did you find what you went looking for this morning?” she asked.

“I found some of what I was looking for.”

“You went to my father-in-law.”

“Yes.”

“He telephoned me.”

“He’s had a hard day.”

“He told me you thought I killed Donald.”

“I told him you went out last night and came back with blood on your shoe. He supplied the rest.”

She looked down at her black shoes. “He has always been able to do that.”

“What did you come to tell me?”

She untwisted her gloves and laid them on her knees.

“I was on Hurricane Street. I am the woman they saw.”

I waited.

“You knew it,” she said.

“I knew you went somewhere. Your slipper gave me a place to start.”

“It was Donald’s blood.”

“I thought so.”

“I didn’t know he was dead.” She said it quickly, and then made herself speak more slowly. “I saw him lying there. I touched him. I got blood on my hand and on the slipper, but I didn’t know.”

“What did the person on the telephone tell you?”

“That Donald was meeting a woman in the eleven-hundred block of Hurricane Street. The person said that if I wanted to know who she was, I had better go at once.”

“A man or a woman called?”

“A man. I had never heard his voice.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked who he was. He hung up.”

“You didn’t tell me that last night.”

“I was ashamed of having gone. You were in my house waiting for Donald. I went chasing after him because a stranger suggested he might be with another woman.”

“And when you got there?”

“I heard the shots before I saw him.”

“Where were you?”

“Near the corner. I had left the car in a side street. I went on foot because I didn’t want him to see the car.”

“Did you see who fired?”

“No. I ran toward the sound. Donald was on the pavement.”

“With a man bending over him?”

She looked at me sharply.

“That’s in the paper,” I said.

“Yes. A man was there. I thought he was helping Donald.”

“What did he look like?”

“I couldn’t see his face. He wore a hat. When I knelt down he moved away.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No.”

“Did you see which way he went?”

She shook her head.

“Try again.”

“I was looking at Donald. There were people at the windows, and I heard a door open. When I looked up, the man was gone.”

“You had enough light to see a hat.”

“There was light from a window behind him. I saw the shape of it.”

“Was he tall?”

“I don’t know. He was bent over when I came up.”

She took a handkerchief from her bag and turned it over without using it.

“Why did you leave before the people came out?” I asked.

“I thought of you waiting at the house. I thought if I went back, you could do something.”

“Did you tell me he’d been shot?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I tried to tell you he wouldn’t come home. That was what I could say.”

“Then I went away. What did you do?”

“I washed my hands. I sat up until the police telephoned.”

“Did you tell them you’d been there?”

“No.”

“Has anybody else heard this story?”

“You have.”

“That’s one.”

She put the handkerchief away. “His father has decided I did it. If I go to the police, he’ll see that they agree with him.”

“He doesn’t need your help to make trouble for you. Somebody saw a woman beside the body, and there’s blood on your slipper. The police will get to it.”

“Will you tell them?”

“If they ask me. You’d do better to tell them yourself.”

She looked toward the window. Below it a truck was having trouble turning in the street. She watched until it was gone.

“There was something else,” she said. “A man came to see me this morning.”

“I saw Max Thaler go into your house.”

“Then you know.”

“I know he went in. What did he want?”

“He said Donald had a letter of his. He asked whether it had been brought home.”

“Had it?”

“I don’t know. Donald didn’t come home.”

“Did Thaler describe the letter?”

“He said it was in an envelope. I told him to ask the police about anything found on Donald.”

“And he left?”

“He asked to look through Donald’s desk first. I wouldn’t let him. Then he left.”

“Did he say what was in the envelope?”

“No.”

“Did he say when he gave it to Donald?”

“No.”

“You let him ask quite a few questions without asking him one.”

“I asked why he had come to me. He said the police would keep anything they found, whether it belonged to Donald or not.”

“Was that all?”

“He asked if Donald had spoken to me about money.” She gave me a hard look. “I said no.”

“What sort of money?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Did Donald speak to you about money?”

“No.”

I took the envelope out of my pocket and showed her the number on it.

“Yesterday afternoon your husband wrote a check for five thousand dollars. He left the name off the stub. Do you know who it was for?”

“No.”

“Thaler?”

“I told you I don’t know.”

“Has anybody asked you about a check?”

“No.”

“Did you take anything from Donald’s coat last night?”

She got up. “I barely touched his coat. I felt his face. That was all.”

“The man beside him could have searched him before you got there.”

“I didn’t see him do it.”

“Or he could have found him, just as you did.”

She remained standing. “You think it was Max.”

“I haven’t got a description of the man in the street.”

“He wasn’t Max.” She said it with more force than her earlier answers.

“You told me you couldn’t see his face.”

“I know how Max carries himself.”

“You saw this man bent over in the dark, and you’d met Max well enough to know his walk?”

She held my eyes for a moment, then looked away.

“Had you seen Max before this morning?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“A few times, at parties. Donald knew him. Everyone here knows him.”

“Had you heard his voice before this morning?”

“Yes.”

“You told me you’d never heard the caller’s voice.”

“I hadn’t. It wasn’t Max’s.”

“Then why didn’t you say so when I asked?”

“Because I knew what you would make of it. The man telephoned me, Donald was killed, and Max came to the house the next morning. I can’t explain any of that.”

I couldn’t, either. She took up her gloves.

“I came here because you saw me before I went out,” she said. “You know I was waiting at home for Donald.”

“I know you were there at ten. I know you went out after the telephone rang.”

“That ought to count for something.”

“It does.”

She went to the door. With her hand on the knob, she asked, “Are you working for his father now?”

“No.”

“Will you?”

“I haven’t decided what to do when I finish what Donald hired me for.”

“You don’t know what that was.”

“No.”

She opened the door and went down the hall. I gave her time to get to the elevator before I followed.

The clerk had a message for me when I reached the lobby. An errand boy had brought it while Mrs. Willsson was upstairs. The boy had said Max Thaler sent him. I took the folded sheet to a chair and opened it.

You wasted your time at the bank. Ask the woman what she picked up in Hurricane Street.

It was signed Max Thaler.

I folded it again. Thaler knew I had been to the bank, or wanted me to think he knew. He knew Mrs. Willsson had been in Hurricane Street. That much he could have got from whoever made the telephone call, from the man beside the body, or from Mrs. Willsson herself. He hadn’t named the check. Still, he had sent the note after my bank visit and had pointed me back to the sidewalk.

I asked the clerk when the boy had come. He gave me a time that put the delivery shortly after Mrs. Willsson went upstairs. The boy had waited for an answer until the clerk told him there was none. The clerk couldn’t tell me where the boy had gone.

I went out again. At a telegraph office I wrote a report to the Old Man in San Francisco. There was room on the form for all I knew, with plenty left over.

DONALD WILLSSON MURDERED BEFORE INTERVIEW STOP WROTE FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR CHECK YESTERDAY AFTERNOON STOP FIRST NATIONAL SAYS CHECK NEVER PRESENTED OR CERTIFIED STOP WIDOW ADMITS SHE WENT TO SCENE AFTER TELEPHONE CALL AND WAS SEEN BESIDE BODY STOP THALER VISITED HER THIS MORNING ASKING FOR LETTER AND HAS SENT ME MESSAGE SHOWING KNOWLEDGE OF MY BANK VISIT STOP PURPOSE AND LOCATION OF CHECK UNKNOWN STOP CONTINUING INVESTIGATION

I paid for the wire, watched the operator take it, and went back to the Great Western.

It was night when I let myself into my room. No one was there. I put Thaler’s note beside the envelope with the check number, took off my coat, and sat by the window.

Mrs. Willsson said she had touched nothing but her husband. Thaler said she had picked something up. Cale said the bank had never seen the check. The five thousand dollars was still there. I couldn’t tell where the piece of paper that might draw it out had gone.

Lady Russell came to Kellynch the next morning with a paper in her hand. Mr Shepherd arrived soon afterwards with several in his pocket. Each had spent the preceding evening upon Sir Walter's affairs; and each had some hope, though founded on very different knowledge of him, of being the person to make retrenchment agreeable.

Anne was in the drawing-room when they met. Lady Russell had wished her to be present, and Elizabeth, who would once have considered her presence quite unnecessary, made no objection. Sir Walter took his usual seat, with the air of a man prepared to hear a difficulty stated, provided he were not expected to feel it.

Lady Russell began. She had written down no sum which had not, she believed, been carefully considered. The spring visit to London must be given up for a time; the number of servants reduced; the carriage kept less constantly in use, with fewer horses in the stables; and the great dinners, which had become customary at Kellynch without ever becoming pleasant to its master, must cease. There were smaller savings in her paper, and a provision for paying something every quarter to those tradespeople whose accounts had stood longest.

"It is a plan for a year," she said, "and at the end of it you would know what your income can bear. There would be some inconvenience at first, Sir Walter, but nothing that could injure the respectability of the family."

Sir Walter had listened without interrupting her, though his countenance had altered at each article. "No London," he repeated. "Fewer servants. Fewer horses. I do not know what my neighbours are expected to understand by such an establishment."

"They need understand very little," said Lady Russell. "A gentleman may order his own household."

"A gentleman may," said Sir Walter, "but a baronet is observed. If I were to part with two men and a pair of horses, every person within twenty miles would know it before the horses had left the stable. And what account could be given? That Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, could no longer afford them?"

Elizabeth looked down at the paper. Lady Russell answered that accounts of their conduct would be given whether they altered it or not. Sir Walter declared the plan impossible. He was sorry Lady Russell had taken so much trouble; he could not adopt any part of a scheme which began by surrendering their accustomed place in London and ended by making Kellynch Hall look shut up.

Lady Russell folded her paper. She had expected opposition to one article, and perhaps to two. To hear the whole rejected gave her a clearer notion of the task before Mr Shepherd than any of his figures could have supplied.

Mr Shepherd had indeed been attending closely. His own proposal had been designed to spare Sir Walter those changes which people could see from the road. There need be no sudden reduction of the household, no alteration in the appearance of the carriage, no announcement that the spring journey was abandoned. The stay in town might be shortened, the dinners at home made less frequent, and a fixed sum allowed for the kitchen and stables. He had found, among the accounts, several charges which could be brought down by changing the manner of purchase. If Sir Walter would leave the orders to him, he thought he could save a considerable sum without offending any servant who must be retained, or attracting the notice of a neighbour.

Sir Walter heard him with more patience. The first items seemed to concern nobody but Mr Shepherd and the tradespeople, and he was ready to believe that a tradesman who sent in a bill might also be induced to send in a smaller one. But the fixed sum for the kitchen was another matter, and the proposed limit on the London stay worse.

"Three weeks!" he said. "We have hardly been presented to half our acquaintance in three weeks."

"It might be four, Sir Walter, if the other savings answered."

"Four would be quite insufficient. I will not be hurried about London because a butcher in Somersetshire has charged too much for his meat."

Mr Shepherd explained that the butcher was not alone in doing so. Sir Walter found no comfort in the correction. To allow Mr Shepherd to direct purchases, examine the stable charges, and prescribe the length of his visit to town seemed, upon consideration, little better than submitting to Lady Russell's paper. He pushed the account back across the table.

"No, Mr Shepherd. You may settle what is owing, as you have always done. I cannot have my life measured out by columns."

Mr Shepherd received the papers again without resentment. He had learnt that Sir Walter's first answer to any proposed saving was apt to concern the affront of being asked for it. He had hoped for leave to try one or two of his measures after the general plan had been refused; but Sir Walter's expression made even that modest request unpromising.

There was a pause. Elizabeth moved nearer the window, as though the consultation might be ended by her ceasing to attend to it. Lady Russell was troubled by the two rejected papers, and more troubled by the thought of all that must have made them necessary. Anne had said nothing. She knew enough of the accounts to see how little either plan could accomplish unless it were followed steadily; she had also seen how readily a small exception, once granted to her father, became the rule for all the rest. The prospect of speaking before him and Elizabeth was not inviting, but silence would leave her with the same knowledge and no attempt to use it.

"If neither plan saves enough to satisfy the debts," she said, "we ought to make one which does."

All eyes turned to her. Sir Walter had not supposed that Anne had been considering the matter at all.

"We could remain here," she continued, "and spend far less than we have spent. The London journey might be given up altogether. We might do without the carriage for a year, and sell the horses which are kept for it. There are rooms we need not open, and servants whose work could be managed by those who remained. We could give no dinners until the oldest accounts were paid. If there are things in the house which are ours to part with, and for which there is no use, their value should go to the creditors. Mr Shepherd could tell us what must be paid first, and every saving could be set aside for that purpose."

She spoke quietly, but nobody mistook the extent of what she meant. Her father's objection to Lady Russell's plan had been the notice it would excite. Anne had named changes which could not possibly escape notice, and had proposed to bear it.

"It would be a very different year," she added. "It would have an end in view."

Sir Walter looked at her with astonishment. "You would sell the carriage?"

"For a time we could have no need to keep it, if we went nowhere that required it."

"And how are we to go nowhere? Am I to decline every invitation in the county?"

"We should accept fewer of them," said Anne. "People who know us well would not cease to know us."

"People who know us well are the very people who would ask why."

Lady Russell, though she could have wished Anne had begun with a less alarming article, saw the sense of her proposal. She also saw its cost to Anne, who had spoken before receiving the least sign that she might be supported. Mr Shepherd had taken up his pencil. He set it down again when Elizabeth came away from the window.

"I think Anne is right," Elizabeth said.

Sir Walter turned to her. Lady Russell could scarcely have been more surprised if the support had come from him.

"I do not like the thought of giving up London," Elizabeth went on. "I like still less the thought of going there while people are waiting for their money. We have talked of saving what nobody sees, and the accounts are no better for it. If the carriage must go, it can go. I would rather answer a neighbour's question than another letter from a tradesman."

Anne had expected Elizabeth to find the proposal beneath her. Elizabeth had found something worse in the bills. For weeks she had seen them carried in and carried away, each return attended by a new excuse for not opening it in her father's company. She did not wish to dismiss servants or close rooms, but she had begun to distrust any plan which offered to spare her those vexations at the expense of another year's uncertainty.

Sir Walter was silent long enough to encourage Mr Shepherd to open his account again. Elizabeth's agreement had made a difference to him. Yet Sir Walter's first words removed any hope that the difference had reached the father.

"I am astonished at you both. Anne may have no notion of what is due to this house, but you, Elizabeth, have conducted it for thirteen years. You know what its appearance requires."

"I know what we have spent upon it," said Elizabeth.

"And I know," Sir Walter replied, "that the Elliots have not kept Kellynch Hall by selling their carriage whenever a bill was sent in. I will hear nothing more of such a plan."

Elizabeth withdrew to her former place. Her support had been a brief exertion, and Sir Walter's rebuke had made her feel the loss of all she proposed to give up. She would not take back what she had said; neither was she disposed to press it further. Anne could not wonder at her. To be unexpectedly joined by Elizabeth was something; to expect her to withstand their father for the rest of the morning would have been to expect a change of many years' habit in an hour.

Mr Shepherd had now three plans before him, and not one accepted. He had delayed naming a fourth possibility because it required a greater concession than any yet discussed. The failure of the others made it his duty to speak of it, though he took care to begin with the advantage most likely to recommend it.

"There is one way, Sir Walter, by which the Hall itself might provide a larger yearly sum. The estate would remain entire. Your rights in it would be precisely what they are. With a suitable tenant for Kellynch Hall, the income could meet the most pressing claims while you kept every acre."

Sir Walter rose.

"A tenant?" he said. "At Kellynch Hall?"

Mr Shepherd had meant to explain the terms on which such an arrangement could be made, and the care with which a person might be chosen. He was given no opportunity.

"The word 'tenant' is not to be spoken again in my presence. I have listened to proposals about my servants, my horses, my table, and my movements. I will not listen to one about putting a stranger into my house."

Mr Shepherd put away his pencil. Lady Russell attempted no argument while Sir Walter remained standing. Elizabeth, whose agreement with Anne had depended upon keeping the Hall and ordering it herself, looked almost relieved that this suggestion had failed. It was easier for Sir Walter to be angry with Mr Shepherd than with either of his daughters, and he continued for some minutes to describe the presumption of the proposal. The accounts, which had occasioned it, lay untouched on the table.

Before the visitors had left, a letter was brought in from Uppercross. It was addressed to Anne in Mary's hand. Sir Walter, still unwilling to return to the papers, told her to open it.

"My dear Anne," it began, "I am sorry to say I have been very ill since yesterday. I had a wretched night, and have not strength for any thing. Charles thinks I shall be better presently, but he has not been the person lying awake, and cannot judge of it as I can. I should feel much easier if you would come to me. There is no one here who understands how I am when I am unwell; and if you can come soon, I hope you will. I do not wish to alarm any body, but I have never liked being left to recover by myself."

Mary had added a few lines on the other side, chiefly to say that she had tried to sit up and had found it disagreeable. Anne read them before she answered her father's question about the contents.

"Mary is unwell, and wishes me to go to Uppercross."

"Is she seriously ill?" asked Lady Russell.

"I cannot tell from this. Charles does not think so; but she has had a bad night, and would like me with her."

Sir Walter said Mary was seldom equal to a bad night, and that Charles ought to know by now how to manage these alarms. Elizabeth thought Anne might go if Mary asked for her. The advice cost her nothing, and Mary, at Uppercross, could complain of her sister's absence with more persistence than anybody at Kellynch was likely to complain of her departure.

Anne wrote a short answer. Mr Shepherd offered to have it sent on his way home, and Lady Russell, who had watched Anne through the morning, urged her to come first to her own house if she had any arrangements to make. Anne thanked her. There was little to arrange. Mary had asked plainly for her, and she would go the next day.

The consultation ended without another account being examined. Sir Walter withdrew with a settled objection to all that had been proposed; Elizabeth remained in the drawing-room, her moment of resolution already mixed with regret; and Mr Shepherd went away with papers which could tell him how much was owed, but gave him no permission to prevent more being owing.

In the evening Anne was alone in her room. Mary's letter lay beside the things she had begun to put together for Uppercross. She was glad she could answer that request, though she knew that Mary might feel nearly well by the time she arrived. Of the other claims made upon her that day she could answer none. She had spoken more freely than she had expected, and Elizabeth had supported her; but the bills still lay below, and Sir Walter had agreed to pay them by no means that anyone had named. Anne finished her small preparations and resolved to go to Mary in the morning.

“You owe me seven-and-sixpence, sir,” I said, as soon as I had recovered my breath. “And if you have crossed the sea to pay it, I must own you have taken a roundabout way of settling a small account.”

Mr. Franklin laughed, and helped me to my feet. I made a pretence of leaning heavily on him, to remind him that an old man may be hugged once, but must be lifted up afterwards. He had been looking for me at the house, and somebody had directed him to the sands. That somebody had told him, too, that he was before his time. I was just going to ask how he had managed it, when his face changed, and he looked towards the sandhills by which Rosanna had gone away.

“Who was the girl?” he asked.

“Our second housemaid, sir. Her name is Rosanna Spearman.”

“I frightened her, I think.”

“You surprised her,” I said. “You surprised me. We expected you four hours later.”

“I will account for that presently.” He drew his gloves through his fingers and looked out over the bay. “Is this the place they call the Shivering Sand?”

“It is, sir. And a place which I hope you will never find occasion to visit again.”

The sand was heaving and trembling at the turn of the tide. Mr. Franklin watched it for a little while without speaking. Then he took my arm, and turned me towards the plantation.

I have noticed, in a long life, that a young gentleman who has something on his mind will commonly begin by talking of something else. Mr. Franklin began with the railway. He found fault with its dust, praised its speed, and complained that it had brought him to Yorkshire hungry. He inquired after my lady, and after Miss Rachel, whom he had not seen since they were both children. He asked whether I still read Robinson Crusoe, and whether the seven-and-sixpence had been earning interest against him all these years. I answered as became me, and waited. The matter on his mind would come out when it was ready.

We were nearly through the firs when he stopped.

“Betteredge,” he said, “has anything out of the common happened at the house today?”

There was my opportunity to keep my promise to Penelope. I told him of the three men who had come to the terrace with their drums, and of the little English boy who had gone away with them. I told him what Penelope had seen after she followed them, and what the boy had said over the ink in his hand. Mr. Franklin listened without interrupting me. At the words “has got It about him,” he took his arm out of mine.

“Did the boy say ‘it’?” he asked.

“Just as my daughter repeated it, sir. She heard nothing more to explain the word.”

“Did you see this yourself?”

“No. Penelope saw it. I should have set it down for a trick if I had seen it, and I set it down for a trick now. But the girl was frightened, and I told her I would put the question to you.”

“You have put it to me.” He stood for a moment pulling one glove into the other. “I believe the boy meant the Moonstone.”

I looked at him. There are some words which seem to alter the place in which they are spoken. We were in a common plantation of firs, within a short walk of a house where the servants’ dinner was cooling; but I heard the sea behind us, and remembered the tale that had followed Colonel Herncastle home from India.

“Then you believe in the trick, sir?”

“I believe the boy spoke of the Moonstone. That is as much as I can tell you.”

He walked on. I kept beside him, having sense enough to see that he had said what he intended to say. If you are disappointed in me for not pressing him further, remember, good friend, that I was head of the servants, and not head of Mr. Franklin Blake. A man may ask a question and get an answer. He cannot make the answer longer by pulling at the gentleman who gives it.

“Now for my being early,” says Mr. Franklin, when the trees had hidden the sands from us. “A letter reached me in London last night. I should have travelled by the later train if it had not come.”

He took a folded sheet from his pocket and gave it to me. It was addressed in Mr. Bruff’s hand. I knew his hand well enough from the business letters that came to my lady. Here is the letter itself, copied for me by Mr. Bruff from the paper which Mr. Franklin showed me that afternoon.

“Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Wednesday evening, 24 May 1848.

“My dear Mr. Blake,

“After you left my office today, a stranger called and inquired by which train you intended to travel to Yorkshire tomorrow. My clerk answered that he had no instructions to give information concerning your movements. Within the hour another stranger made the same inquiry of a second clerk. Neither left a name, and neither stated his business.

“I cannot say that these visits concern the matter of which we spoke. You have, however, told me that you mean to leave London by a train which will bring you to Lady Verinder’s late in the afternoon. I advise you to take an earlier one. You can reach the house about four hours before you are expected, and spare yourself any further inquiries on the road.

“There is no cause, on the facts known to me, for alarming Lady Verinder. I write because a small change in your journey is easy to make, and because I should blame myself if I had kept the visits from you.

“Yours faithfully, Matthew Bruff.”

I read it twice. Mr. Bruff was a careful man. When he said he could not account for a thing, he meant precisely that he could not account for it. The two strangers might have had honest business with Mr. Franklin, though they had gone about it in a curious way. On the other hand, the boy with the ink had made his announcement in our neighbourhood that very morning.

“How did the letter find you in time?” I asked.

“Bruff sent it by hand to my rooms. I got it before I went to bed, changed my plans, and was away this morning.”

“And the strangers?”

“I know no more of them than you do.”

He put the letter back in his pocket. I could see that he was considering what Penelope had told me, but he said nothing more about the boy. We came out of the plantation by the path which led to the back of the house. There, standing near the gate with her bonnet in her hand, was Penelope. She had plainly been watching for us. I have never known my daughter fail to be where news might first be had, though I have known her arrive too late for work more than once.

“Father,” she said, “Rosanna hasn’t come back to the house.”

“Where has she gone?”

“On to Cobb’s Hole. I met her below the garden wall. She asked me to tell you she was going there, and would come back by the shore path. I told her she had missed her dinner already.”

“What did she answer?”

“She thanked me for looking for her.”

“That wasn’t an answer,” I said.

“No, father. She went on before I could get another.”

Penelope looked past me at Mr. Franklin, and made her curtsey. I presented her, as proud fathers will, whether anybody asks them to or not. Mr. Franklin remembered her as a little girl, and she remembered him as a boy who had once given her a painted toy from abroad. She made more of the toy than its price deserved. He made more of remembering it than his memory deserved, perhaps. They pleased each other, which was the principal thing.

I sent Penelope in, with a message that Rosanna was to have some dinner kept for her. Nancy, I knew, would not like the order. Nancy’s likes and dislikes could wait upon Rosanna’s appetite, if Rosanna ever brought it home. The words the poor girl had spoken at the sands were still in my ears. She had said her grave was waiting for her there. It is easy to laugh at a fancy of that sort when the person who speaks it is sitting beside you in the daylight. It was harder to laugh when she had gone off alone, and the path behind us led down to the Shivering Sand.

Mr. Franklin saw that I was troubled.

“Is she ill?” he asked.

“She had one of her fainting fits this morning. She wanted air. I meant to bring her back to dinner.”

“Perhaps she will be better for going to the village.”

“Perhaps, sir.” I did not tell him what Rosanna had said. Her confidence belonged to her, even if she had given it to an old fool who answered her with roast mutton and suet pudding.

At the back door Mr. Franklin stopped me again. The house was quiet. My lady had returned, but had not yet sent to know whether he had arrived.

“I have a favour to ask of you, Betteredge.”

“Two, if you please, sir. You are in debt to me.”

“This will do for one.” He took a small packet from an inner pocket of his coat. It was wrapped in plain paper and closed with sealing-wax. “Will you put this in the plate-room and lock it up for me? I want it kept there tonight. I shall ask you for it tomorrow.”

He placed it in my hand. I looked at the seals, because a servant who takes charge of a sealed thing ought to know whether it is sealed when he takes it. I did not turn it over to study it, and I did not ask what it contained. Mr. Franklin said nothing to tell me. I knew what name he had given to the boy’s “It”; I did not know what lay inside the packet. A guess is a guest that invites itself into a man’s head. It need not be invited to sit down.

“I will lock it up, sir.”

“And keep the key yourself.”

“I always do.”

He smiled at that, and I went straight to the plate-room. I cleared a place in the locked drawer where I kept the smaller articles committed to my charge, laid the packet there, and turned the key. Then I locked the plate-room door and tried it with my hand. Both locks held. I put the keys in my pocket. The packet was to stay where I had laid it until Mr. Franklin asked for it in the morning.

You may think I have spent a deal of words on a man putting a packet into a drawer. I can only tell you that I put it there once, and that it remained there that night. If I were to save my words over the things I did with my own hands, you might fairly complain of me when I come to the things I know only by what other people said.

I found Mr. Franklin waiting in the passage. Before I could speak, my lady’s bell rang. She was in the morning-room, and had heard of his arrival.

I went in with him, to announce him properly, but my lady would have none of my announcement. She rose as soon as she saw him and took both his hands. He kissed her, foreign fashion again, and for a moment they talked so fast that I could not have put down one sentence of it with any certainty. She asked after his father. He asked whether the journey home had tired her. She said he looked thin; he said she looked as he remembered her. I stood by the door, waiting for an instruction about his luggage, and received no instruction at all.

At last my lady asked why he had come so early.

“A letter from Mr. Bruff made me change my train,” said Mr. Franklin.

“A business letter?”

“In part.”

She looked at him closely. Whatever he saw in her face checked the explanation he was going to give. He said that Mr. Bruff had heard of inquiries about his journey, and had thought it prudent for him to travel earlier. My lady asked whether the inquirers were known. He said they were not.

“I am glad you are here,” she answered. “There is one thing I must settle with you while we are alone.”

I moved towards the door. My lady bade me stay. She had seen me bring him in, she said, and there was no need for me to go out on her account.

“Franklin, I will have no discussion of Colonel Herncastle under my roof.”

He bowed his head. She had spoken quietly, but I had served her too long to mistake her meaning.

“You have your own affairs to arrange,” she went on. “I shall not question you about them. I ask you to spare me any talk of the Colonel while you are my guest.”

“You have my word, aunt,” he said. “I will not discuss him here.”

My lady thanked him, and asked him to sit down. The matter was settled in less time than it has taken me to write it. She began asking about his travels, and he answered with enough stories to make her laugh. When she remembered that he had arrived hungry, she rang for something to be brought to him at once. I received my orders about the luggage and went out.

I had not expected to hear her speak of Colonel Herncastle. She had long been unwilling to hear his name, and Mr. Franklin knew it. Still, an old quarrel may lie quiet for years and make itself felt again the moment a letter comes from a lawyer. I leave the quarrel where my lady left it. Her orders were clear, and Mr. Franklin had agreed to them.

The afternoon passed in the ordinary business of a house receiving a guest. His trunks came in, his room was made ready, and the servants found several reasons to cross the hall while he went up and down the stairs. A young gentleman returned from abroad gives them something to look at and something to talk about. I had a better occupation. I kept a count of the keys in my pocket whenever I had occasion to use another key, and kept them there when I had not.

Rosanna’s dinner stood covered by the kitchen fire. Penelope went to look for her twice, and came back both times without news. I told her Rosanna had a friend at Cobb’s Hole and might be taking longer over the visit than she had intended.

“You were anxious about her when you came in,” says Penelope.

“I am anxious about a servant who misses her dinner,” I answered. “It throws out the household.”

My daughter let that answer pass. She knows how much notice to take of me when I speak as head of the servants instead of as her father.

Evening came on. My lady had her visitor to herself, and I saw no more of Mr. Franklin except once in the passage, when he asked whether I had found a safe place for the packet. I told him it was locked away. He thanked me, and went back to my lady. I made my last round, saw to the doors, and found that Rosanna had still not returned. There was enough light left for a person to walk up from Cobb’s Hole. I told Penelope to come to me as soon as she heard Rosanna in the servants’ hall.

Late that evening I sat in my beehive chair with Robinson Crusoe open on my knee. I had moved the chair into my sitting-room, where the lamp was lit and my supper stood beside me. I turned a page without taking in a word of it. The keys were in my pocket; the sealed packet was locked in the plate-room; and Rosanna Spearman was still not back in the house.

Three nights after that walk, I saw the first of the falling stars.

I had been working late at my papers, and the window beside my desk stood open to the warm air. My wife had gone upstairs. Except for the small circle made by my lamp, the room was dark, and through the window I could see the black shapes of the trees against the sky. I looked up from a sentence that had troubled me for some time, and at that instant a light appeared above the trees.

It was not like the common shooting stars one sees on an August night. It grew as I watched it, from a white point to a brilliant, greenish thing with a short train of sparks. It crossed a little space of clear sky with extraordinary speed and vanished behind the poplars in the direction of Chertsey. I had risen before it disappeared. For a moment the leaves and the edge of the window remained printed dark upon my sight. Then I heard, or thought I heard, a distant, muffled report.

I went into the garden. The night had become perfectly quiet again. There was no glow among the trees, and the stars looked as small and steady as before. Mars was visible above the roof of a neighbouring house. I remember looking from it to the place where the light had gone down, and being vexed with myself for doing so. The flashes upon the planet had set all our minds running upon it; nevertheless, a meteor was a meteor, and such bodies fell upon the earth without any assistance from Mars.

My wife called to me from an upper window. She had seen the brightness through the curtains, and supposed at first that there was a fire. I told her what I had seen, and we stood talking for a little while, she above and I upon the path. A dog barked somewhere towards Ottershaw. There was no other sound, and presently she went in and I followed her. I made a note of the hour, which was a few minutes before midnight, and of the direction of the fall. I did not finish the sentence in my paper.

In the morning, before we had done breakfast, we heard that something had fallen into an old gravel pit beside the road between Ottershaw and Chertsey. The pit had long been abandoned, and water stood in its lower part throughout the year. A labourer going to his work had found the bank torn up and had seen steam rising above the alders. He told the first people he met that a great stone lay in the water. By the time this account reached our house, the stone had become a mass of iron, and one woman had heard that it was still burning.

I proposed to go over at once. My wife, who had listened with more interest than she cared to confess, fetched her hat and said she would come with me. We took the lane towards Ottershaw. The morning was clear, with a thin mist lying over the low fields, and the hedges were wet enough to brush our sleeves as we passed. A few men went ahead of us at a pace that showed they had heard the news. One carried a spade, though I could not imagine what use he expected to make of it. We overtook a boy who had been at the pit already. He was eager to tell us how high the water had flown in the night, but as he had slept through the fall, this was plainly something he had learned from another boy.

A little way short of the pit we came upon the first certain signs of it. A gate had been wrenched from one hinge, and beyond it a narrow track of earth and broken turf ran down the slope. The gravel at the edge had been thrown back in a low ridge. There was a smell of wet clay and something else, sharp and metallic, that grew stronger as we approached. My wife stopped to look at a splintered fence post. From where we stood, steam could be seen rising in pale folds above the water.

The object lay near the further bank, half-submerged. The pit was perhaps forty yards across at that point. Muddy water filled the hollow it had made, and its exposed side rose out of the water in a broad, dark curve. I could make no certain estimate of its size, for the water concealed its lower half and steam drifted continually across it. It had the dull colour of old iron, though in places the wet surface caught the light with a faint bronze gleam. The water immediately about it bubbled now and then, and a thin current of vapour rose from every part that the water touched. Beyond that little troubled circle, the pool lay still.

There were perhaps twenty people upon the bank. Most stood a respectful distance away, looking from the thing to the broken track by which it had come. A man was explaining the fall to his companions with the aid of both arms. Nearer the water I saw Ogilvy, his boots deep in the soft gravel, examining the exposed surface through a pocket glass. He turned when he heard us and waved us down to him.

"So you saw it fall," he said, before I could speak. "I was told you had."

"Last night. I thought it came down somewhere in this direction."

"You were right. Look at that bank. It struck there and went on into the water."

My wife asked him whether it was safe to stand so close. Ogilvy glanced at the steam and drew us a step back from the wet edge. He seemed pleased by the size of the object, and impatient with the people who had begun to speculate about it.

"It is a meteorite," he said. "A very large one. I wish we could see what lies below the water."

I told him that I had seen the light appear in the same quarter of the sky as Mars. He took the glass from his eye and looked at me.

"Many things appear in the same quarter of the sky as Mars," he said. "It covers a good part of the heavens in the course of a night."

"But the outbursts," I said. "And the interval since the first of them."

He shook his head. "You know as well as I do that meteors enter our air every night. This one happens to have reached the ground, and you happen to have watched it. That is all. The fire you saw was made in its passage through the air. The steam is made by the water."

I pointed to the exposed side. Even through the vapour it seemed to me remarkably even in its curvature. The pieces of meteoric iron I had seen in museums were scarred and irregular, while this great body had a smoothness that made me think of work done by a lathe. Ogilvy stooped, studied it afresh through his glass, and admitted the difference without yielding his opinion.

"We have not seen every sort of meteorite," he said. "Nor are you seeing much of this one. A crust formed by heat may hide what is beneath it."

He spoke with the firmness he used when he thought an argument had become fanciful. I had no answer to the crust, and little grounds for disputing him beyond the appearance of the thing and the uncomfortable coincidence of its arrival. Yet I remained dissatisfied. I walked a few paces along the bank to change my view of it. Its outline altered scarcely at all. The curve passed down into the brown water on either side, so that I could not tell whether I was looking at the flank of a round mass or the end of something much longer.

My wife joined me. She had expected, she said, a stone, and found it difficult to call this a stone even after Ogilvy's explanation. She asked how long it would remain hot. I told her that so great a body might hold its heat for many hours. This was no more than a guess, but the steam rose steadily before us, and the bank of gravel nearest it felt warm through the soles of my boots.

We stayed there through most of the morning. Two men fetched poles and tried to learn the depth of the water beside the object, but the bank gave under one of them and they abandoned the attempt. Ogilvy made notes and questioned anyone who had been awake at the time of the fall. No one had seen more than a sudden light in a bedroom or across a field. One man declared that the ground had shaken his bed; another, living nearer the pit, had slept undisturbed. The man who had first found the place returned with his employer and showed them the track on the slope. Each new arrival asked the same questions, and each received an account a little more certain than the last.

It was curious to watch the effect of that dark curve upon the company. From the road it appeared a great distance away, with the water and the steep bank between it and us. After a few minutes people moved closer, as though familiarity had made the distance shorter. They talked freely until a puff of steam came up from the pool, when they fell silent and watched it disperse. A cart passed on the road without stopping. Its driver called to ask if the stone was worth seeing, and a dozen voices assured him that it was. He tied his horse to the gatepost and came down.

A young fellow from Chertsey, who had been disputing with Ogilvy about the heat, climbed round the narrow strip of bank that led towards the object. The water there was shallow, and he found footing among the gravel washed up by the fall. Ogilvy called to him to keep clear of it. The young man answered that a thing standing in water all morning could hardly burn him now. He put one hand against the dark surface, perhaps to steady himself as much as to prove his point.

He cried out and sprang back so violently that he slipped into the shallows. Two men helped him up. He held his hand away from his body, staring at the fingers. The skin across his palm had turned pale where it had touched the metal, and within a minute it began to redden. My wife went to him with her handkerchief. He allowed her to wrap it loosely about the hand, though he kept saying, with an injured air, that he had touched it only for an instant.

Ogilvy was angry with him, but he also looked closely at the burn. "That should settle the question of anyone else going near it," he said. The young fellow was led up the bank towards the road, where someone offered to take him into Chertsey. He had more to say about the heat by then than he had said about its absence. His injury was painful, but he could walk easily enough, and presently I saw him holding up the bandaged hand for a fresh party of spectators.

After that a little space was kept clear along the water. It did not prevent people from pressing forward elsewhere. The news had reached both Ottershaw and Chertsey, and they came by the lane singly and in groups: men who had left their work for an hour, women with children, two cyclists who laid their machines in the grass, and a gentleman who began at once to inquire who owned the pit. Some thought the object had fallen before midnight; others insisted that it had come down towards dawn. Ogilvy repeated his observations until he grew tired of repeating them. The thing itself gave them nothing new. It lay where it had fallen, half under the muddy water, and steam continued to rise from its sides.

Near noon the mist had vanished and the sun beat strongly upon the bare gravel. My wife had grown tired of standing, though she would not say so. She was troubled, too, by the numbers coming down the slope and by the way children slipped past their elders towards the water. I urged her to go home and promised that I would follow before long. She said she could find the lane without me, but lingered while another group came through the broken gate.

At last I walked with her to the top of the bank. From there the pool looked smaller, and the people about it seemed to fill nearly every bit of firm ground. A fresh party was coming along the road. My wife looked back once at the steam, then went towards Ottershaw, carrying her empty hand beneath the arm that had held the young man's bandage. I watched until the hedge hid her. Then I returned to the bank, where Ogilvy stood among the growing crowd, and stayed to look at the thing in the water.

Robert gave his arm to Madame Ratignolle, and adapted his step to the slow pace she chose. Her cramp appeared to trouble her less as they went on. She stopped once to turn and look toward the beach, where the children had begun to pull up the pegs of the tent.

"They will have the whole thing down upon their heads," she said.

"The nurse-maids are there."

"That is no reason why it should not fall."

They could still see Mrs. Pontellier among the small figures. She had taken hold of one corner of the canvas and was standing quite still while the children struggled with another. Robert watched her for a moment.

"She was vexed with me for finding you," he said.

"Why should she be vexed?"

"I don't know. Mrs. Pontellier looked at me as though she were sorry to be found."

"You are too much accustomed to being welcomed, Robert."

"I know when I am not."

Madame Ratignolle laughed, and leaned a little more heavily upon his arm where the sand had gathered in a hollow of the path. They said nothing further of Edna. Adèle began to speak of a seam in the little garment she had brought with her, and of the trouble she had taken to make it lie flat. Robert listened and pulled a spray of camomile as they passed.

Mrs. Pontellier remained at the beach until the children had tired of their tent. Raoul had discovered a shell which he declared was better than all the others, though it was broken and held so much sand that he left a trail of it wherever he went. His brother wanted the shell. Edna settled the matter by promising that they might look for another on the way back. They found none, and had forgotten the dispute before they reached the cottages.

A telegram was waiting for her on the gallery. It had come while she was away, and the boy who brought it had given it to the nurse. Edna stood with her hat still on and opened the envelope. Léonce said that business would keep him in New Orleans through the week-end. He would write, and she was not to expect him on Saturday.

She read the message twice. The nurse, occupied in getting the sand from Raoul's shoes, did not look up. Edna laid the paper on the little table beside the door and went inside to wash her hands.

She had been counting upon Léonce's coming without being aware that she counted upon it. There would have been his arrival with his bags, his questions about the boys, the news he brought from the city. Now Saturday had lost its shape. She could not have said whether the prospect disappointed her. She was sorry that the children would miss him, and thought at once of telling them; yet she let them go to their dinner without a word.

Madame Ratignolle came over after the midday meal. She carried the needlework which had traveled uselessly to the beach and back in her pocket. Edna had taken a chair near the open door, where the breeze reached her, and was trying to fasten a button upon one of the boys' little coats. The needle had too large an eye for the thread. Adèle offered her own, threaded it, and remained beside her while Edna sewed.

"Has the cramp gone?" Edna asked.

"It had gone before we reached the house. I made poor Robert walk as slowly as an old gentleman."

"He is patient with you."

"With me! He was quite occupied with you. He said, on the way home, that you looked at him as though you were sorry to be found."

Edna drew the thread through the cloth and examined the button.

"Did I look so cross?"

"He did not say cross. Those were his words. I told him he was too much accustomed to being welcomed."

"He brought the children," Edna said. "How could I have been sorry?"

Adèle held out her hand for the needle, and Edna gave it to her. There was a knot close to the eye which Adèle freed with a touch of her finger.

"You might have wished for a little longer with me," she said, smiling.

"I did."

The answer pleased Adèle. She returned the needle and went on talking of the children and of a dress she meant to alter before the summer was out. Edna listened, and made the button secure. She had felt, when Robert appeared, that their talk was at an end. Until Adèle repeated his remark, she had not supposed that her face had shown it.

The telegram lay upon the table. Adèle saw it as she rose to go, and Edna told her its contents. She said that Léonce had a matter of business which detained him.

"Then you must spend Sunday with us," said Adèle.

"Very likely I shall."

After Adèle had gone, Edna told the boys that their father would stay in the city that week. Raoul wished to know if he would send another box. The younger boy asked when Saturday would come. She answered them as well as she could, and sent them with the nurse to rest.

The afternoon had grown quiet about the cottages. Somewhere in the main house a door closed, and the sound carried distinctly through the stillness. Edna took the key to the bath-house from its place and went down the sandy path alone. She did not call for Robert. She had seen no one near Madame Lebrun's gallery when she set out.

The camomile beside the path bent under the wind. Its yellow heads were dusty, and the air above them trembled with heat. At the beach the same stiff breeze was blowing across the water, though it felt cooler there. The bath-houses cast short shadows on the sand. Edna unlocked her compartment and changed into her bathing dress.

The lady in black sat on the neighboring gallery with a closed book in her lap. Edna had passed her many times and had received from her only the grave acknowledgment one gives to a person met each day. As Edna came out, the lady rose.

"The wind has kept the others away," she said.

It was the first time she had spoken to Edna. Her voice was low and quite agreeable.

"Perhaps it will go down," Edna answered.

"Perhaps." The lady looked toward the children’s empty tent. "Your little boys were here this morning. One of them had found a fine shell."

"It was broken," said Edna, and smiled.

"He was pleased with it all the same."

The lady took up her book and went along the gallery to the steps. She moved toward the path to the house, holding the book against her black skirt. Edna watched until she had passed behind the first bath-house. It surprised her to find that the lady had noticed anything the children did.

She went down to the water. She had bathed often enough that summer, going in with the others and remaining where she could stand. The instruction she had received had done little for her. In the water she forgot what had seemed plain enough upon the sand. Some one would hold out a hand, or tell her to strike away with her feet, and she would seize upon the hand before she had tried.

No one was near her now. Farther along the beach a fisherman attended to something in his boat, with his back turned to the shore. Edna waded until the water reached her waist. The wind roughened its surface and blew spray against her cheek. She waited for a wave to pass, put her hands forward, and lifted her feet from the sand.

For an instant she sank lower than she had meant to. She set her feet down and stood up, brushing the water from her eyes. Then she tried again. She made a clumsy movement with her arms and felt herself going forward. Her feet struck at the water behind her. She took one stroke, and another, and a third. When she stood, the sand beneath her was several feet from the place where she had begun.

She looked back toward it, scarcely certain of the distance. The water had carried her a little to one side. She tried once more and went farther, though she could not make her arms and legs obey her for long. She stopped while she could still touch bottom. Her breath came quickly, and she was laughing as she turned toward the shore.

On the beach she found no one waiting to ask what she had done. The fisherman had gone round to the other side of his boat. She climbed the steps of the bath-house, with the water running from her dress, and shut herself inside. She told no one of the strokes, either when she returned to the cottage or during the hours that followed. Once, while the children were at supper, she nearly spoke of them. Raoul was intent upon the broken shell, which he had brought to the table, and she let him tell its history again.

At night the boys were asleep, and Edna sat alone on the gallery of the cottage. Léonce's telegram had been taken indoors. A lamp burned behind her, but she had left the door nearly closed, and there was little light upon the gallery. She could hear the water beyond the dark path. She thought of the stretch of sand she had crossed without touching it, and then of what Adèle had said at midday. Robert's remark remained with her in the words Adèle had used. She sat looking out into the dark, wondering how long he had watched her before she knew he was there.

At the foot of the stairs Eve found that the rain had stopped. The sun was shining on the pavement with the air of one who had been there all morning and could produce witnesses. She looked at the umbrella in her hand. It was a fine umbrella, with a polished handle and a silver band, and its owner, whoever he might be, would want it back.

She walked to Dover Street. At the entrance to the gloomy building opposite Messrs. Thorpe & Briscoe stood a porter whose expression suggested that he knew every member of the club and disapproved of a fair number of them.

"A gentleman came out of here this morning and lent me this," said Eve. "At least, I think he lent it. He didn't say."

The porter took the umbrella and examined the silver band.

"Yes, miss."

"Could you give it back to him? I should like to leave a note."

He led her to a little desk inside the entrance, where she wrote:

Thank you very much for the umbrella. My hat and I arrived quite dry.

E. H.

She folded the paper and gave it to the porter.

"I don't know the gentleman's name," she said.

"No, miss."

The porter placed the note beside the umbrella. Eve thanked him and went out, feeling that she had settled the matter as well as it could be settled. The porter watched her cross the street, then looked down at the umbrella again. He knew whose it was. This made the note rather interesting.

* * * * *

The Honourable Hugo Walderwick came into the Drones Club shortly before noon in search of his umbrella. He was a young man who seldom noticed things until he needed them. At the sight of it behind the porter's desk, however, he became observant.

"That's mine."

"Yes, sir."

"Why is it wet?"

"A young lady brought it back, sir."

Walderwick stared at him.

"What young lady?"

"I don't know, sir. She left a note."

"A note for me?"

The porter considered this. The note was addressed to no one, and the young lady had described a gentleman who had come out of the club.

"She left it with the umbrella, sir. Mr. Psmith took the umbrella out this morning."

Walderwick took this news upstairs. He found Psmith in the smoking-room, seated by the window with a newspaper open before him. Psmith was looking past it at the premises of Messrs. Thorpe & Briscoe. Their awning had been rolled away, and the frontage had resumed its customary appearance.

"Psmith."

Psmith lowered the paper.

"Comrade Walderwick. Your face tells me that you have come upon something disturbing."

"You took my umbrella."

Psmith glanced at the object in Walderwick's hand.

"It is a handsome umbrella," he said.

"You took it out in the rain."

"I see signs of moisture."

"Some girl brought it back."

Psmith laid down the paper. Walderwick waited. Psmith looked at him with polite interest, as though waiting for him to continue an account of his travels.

"Well?" said Walderwick.

"An excellent question. One has often asked it oneself."

"What did you want with my umbrella?"

Psmith appeared to consider the matter.

"How much did you pay for it, Comrade Walderwick?"

"What?"

"For the umbrella. I should be sorry to offer you less than it cost."

"I'm not selling it."

"Twenty pounds."

Walderwick's fingers tightened on the handle. The umbrella had cost him eighteen shillings and sixpence, and he had thought at the time that the shop had treated him badly.

"What did you say?"

"Twenty pounds. I have some notes with me."

Psmith produced them. Walderwick looked from the money to the umbrella. He was a man of principle, but he could see no principle that required him to keep an umbrella under these conditions.

"It's worth nothing like that," he said.

"I shall have to take the risk."

Walderwick accepted the money and surrendered the umbrella. He had intended to ask several more questions, but it is difficult to press a man for an explanation while holding twenty pounds of his. He went away convinced that Psmith knew something about the young lady and equally convinced that it was no business of his.

Psmith examined his purchase. The porter had tucked Eve's note beneath the band. Psmith read it, folded it with care, and put it in his pocket. Then he carried the umbrella to the cloak-room and entrusted it to the attendant.

"Guard it closely," he said. "I find that these things can command remarkable prices."

* * * * *

At luncheon Eve told herself that the interview would be simple. A gentleman with a library wanted his books catalogued. She could read a title-page, write a legible hand, and arrange cards in alphabetical order. She had even bought a packet of cards on her way from the club, so that she might show him how she proposed to do it.

She was less certain when she reached the hotel. Lord Emsworth had come up from Shropshire that afternoon, and the sitting-room to which a waiter conducted her contained a collection of luggage, seed catalogues, and newspapers which gave no hint that anyone expected to discuss books. On the table lay a volume of poetry. Lord Emsworth, who was searching beneath a cushion, rose when she came in.

"Miss Halliday?" he said.

"Yes."

"Quite. Do sit down. Baxter was here a moment ago. He had some papers, but he has taken them away. I suppose he knows where they are."

Eve sat down, keeping her hat on her knee. Lord Emsworth returned to his search.

"I had my spectacles when I came in," he said. "A most trying thing. They have a way of disappearing."

"They're on the table," said Eve. "Beside the flowers."

"Bless my soul, so they are."

He put them on and looked at her with fresh attention.

"You are the young lady about the library."

"I hope so."

"Yes, yes. Baxter said you knew about books."

"I know something about them," said Eve. "I've brought some cards to show you."

She took the packet from her bag. Lord Emsworth, whose attention had wandered to the volume of poetry, opened it at random.

"My sister wishes me to read this fellow before he comes to luncheon tomorrow," he said. "A Canadian. McTodd."

Eve stopped taking out the cards.

"Ralston McTodd?"

"That's the man. Do you know his work?"

"I know something about him."

Lord Emsworth looked pleased. He offered her the book.

"Then perhaps you could tell me which bit I ought to read. I have tried several, but I seem to have missed the best ones."

Eve took the volume. The name on the title-page was unmistakable. She thought of Cynthia packing for Brighton and of Miss Clarkson's anxious face. The interview, which had seemed simple at luncheon, became complicated.

"If you want my opinion of Mr. McTodd," she said, "I think he's a brute."

Lord Emsworth blinked.

"Is he? Constance spoke very well of him."

"She may not know that he's deserted his wife."

"Oh, dear."

"She's a friend of mine," said Eve. "I'm sorry. I oughtn't to have brought it up."

"No, no. I asked you. A most unfortunate business, if that's what he's done." Lord Emsworth looked at the book in her hands. "Constance is expecting him tomorrow."

Eve put it carefully on the table. The card packet slid from her lap, struck the edge of a chair, and scattered over the carpet. She knelt to collect it. Several cards had fallen beneath the sofa, and Lord Emsworth joined her on the floor to help.

Rupert Baxter came in to find his employer and the candidate searching under the furniture.

"Have you lost your spectacles again, Lord Emsworth?"

"No. Miss Halliday has lost her cards. Baxter, did you know that this poet has a wife?"

Baxter looked at Eve, then at the poetry.

"I know nothing of Mr. McTodd's domestic affairs," he said. "I have Miss Halliday's references here, and Lady Constance wished the interview to be concluded today."

Eve recovered the last card. It had been meant to demonstrate her neat hand. It now bore the print of Lord Emsworth's thumb.

"I should like the post very much," she said. "What I said about Mr. McTodd was a private matter. I won't put it in the catalogue."

Lord Emsworth took off his spectacles and smiled at her.

"No, I don't suppose it belongs there. Do you, Baxter?"

"The books are to be catalogued by author and title," said Baxter.

"Then that's settled. Miss Halliday can begin when she comes down. You had better tell her about the train."

Baxter gave Eve the particulars with the air of a man determined to rescue what remained of the interview. Lord Emsworth shook her hand and asked whether she had found all her cards. She had. In the lift on the way down, she counted them again to be certain.

* * * * *

Psmith's visit to the Ada Clarkson International Employment Bureau had been less productive. Miss Clarkson was engaged, and he had filled in a form under the eye of Enquiries. The form contained a space for "Nature of employment desired", which allowed far less room than Psmith felt the subject deserved. He had finally written "Anything except fish" and left it at that.

By the time he emerged into Shaftesbury Avenue, the afternoon sun had warmed the pavement. He walked without haste, giving thought to the difficulties of a form on which "Previous experience" had been almost as troublesome a heading. At the corner of a side street a woman came out of a stationer's shop carrying a small parcel and a packet of cards. The parcel slipped. Psmith caught it before it reached the ground.

"Thank you," said Eve, and then recognised him.

She could hardly have failed to do so. He was wearing a hat this time, but the height, the monocle, and the grave expression were the same. Psmith handed back the parcel with a courteous bow.

"I think we've met," she said.

"I have that impression myself."

"In Dover Street this morning."

"Dover Street," said Psmith. "Yes. A pleasant street when the weather permits one to see it."

"You gave me an umbrella."

"Did I?"

Eve laughed.

"You know perfectly well that you did."

Psmith inspected the packet of cards in her hand.

"London has many young men who perform acts of generosity during rainstorms. I should be reluctant to take credit for another's work."

"There can't be so many who look exactly like you."

"That is kind of you. Have you had a satisfactory afternoon?"

Eve saw that he was determined to leave the umbrella where it stood. She could hardly make him claim it, and she was in too good a humour to try for long.

"I think so. I've just been offered a job cataloguing a library."

"An undertaking which must bring order to many lives."

"It will bring order to a roomful of books, if I do it properly. I nearly spoiled the interview."

"Did you mistake the employer for a book?"

"No. I gave him my opinion of a guest he is expecting tomorrow."

"Was it a favourable opinion?"

"Very far from it."

"Then the guest may have something to answer for."

"He has," said Eve, with a sudden seriousness that made Psmith look at her more closely. "At any rate, I got the job."

He congratulated her. A passing cart obliged them to move back from the kerb, and when it had gone Eve tucked the parcel more firmly under her arm.

"I returned the umbrella," she said. "The porter has it, and I left a note. If you happen to see the gentleman it belongs to, you can tell him I'm grateful."

"I shall make a point of passing on the message if the opportunity arises."

She gave him a look which told him that she had understood none of this as a denial. Then she wished him good afternoon and went on her way. Psmith watched until she turned the corner. He took Eve's note from his pocket, looked at the initials, and put it back.

* * * * *

In the evening Psmith brought Mike Jackson to dine at the Drones. Mike had had a tiresome day, and Psmith had promised him a meal at which nobody would mention the fish business. They kept the promise through dinner and went afterwards to the smoking-room. The umbrella stood beside Psmith's chair.

Mike noticed it while reaching for his coat.

"New umbrella?"

"Acquired today."

"Looks expensive."

"It was."

"Why buy one when it's stopped raining?"

"One must prepare for the next shower."

Mike let the matter pass. He was due to meet Phyllis and did not have time to examine all of Psmith's purchases.

"She's had Eve Halliday with her again," he said. "You remember Phyllis speaking of her? Eve's got the Blandings job. Had an interview with the old earl this afternoon."

Psmith turned toward him.

"What sort of girl is Miss Halliday?"

"Phyllis's best friend from school. Dark frock today, hat with a great black feather. You couldn't miss it." Mike glanced at the clock. "I must go. Phyllis will be waiting."

Psmith accompanied him to the door and returned to the smoking-room. The other occupants had gone down to dinner, and he was alone. He sat by the window with the umbrella he had bought for twenty pounds propped against his chair. Across the street, Thorpe & Briscoe's shop was closed. Psmith looked at it for a while, then took the folded note from his pocket. The initials had ceased to be a puzzle. Her name was Eve Halliday.

"I know," I said.

"No, you don't."

The cab went under a row of trees. The street lamps made a light on the roof and then we were in the dark again.

"Where are we going?" Brett asked.

"Out to the Parc Montsouris."

"What for?"

"I thought you might like the ride."

"I would. But will you take me to the Dôme first? I want to sit down where there are people."

I leaned forward and tapped on the glass. The driver slid it open and I told him the Café du Dôme. He nodded and closed the glass. Brett watched the backs of the houses going by. She had let go of my hand.

"I've been out with those chaps every night," she said. "They never want to go home. I thought if I went along tonight I'd have a good time."

"You seemed to be having one."

"That's the trouble. I always do."

The cab turned a corner and a light from a shop fell across her face. She looked tired. Then it was gone and I could see only the line of her cheek and the cigarette she was trying to light. I held a match for her. The cab jolted and the match went out.

"Leave it," she said. "I don't want one."

She put the cigarette back in its case. We drove past a café where the chairs were stacked inside and a man was washing the pavement. The water ran into the gutter ahead of us.

"Who was the girl?" Brett asked.

"Georgette."

"I gathered that much. You introduced her to the entire room."

"I met her tonight."

"Was she pleased to meet you?"

"She liked the dinner."

"That was something."

"I left money for her at the Bal."

"I know. I saw you do it."

"Then why did you say I was going to lose it?"

"Because you are."

She turned toward the window again. We rode without talking until the cab pulled up at the Dôme. It was full of people under the awning. There were empty glasses on the tables and more glasses coming out on trays. Across the boulevard the light fell on the trees and on the tops of the taxis waiting at the curb.

We found a table outside after a waiter moved two chairs for us. Brett ordered a brandy and soda. I had a beer. A man at the next table was telling a story to three women. He kept beginning it again because each time he reached the part he liked, one of the women interrupted him. Brett listened for a while.

"I met a man named Lionel Whitcomb last week," she said.

"I've never heard of him."

"Neither had I. He has a fearful amount of money."

"How did you find that out?"

"He told me. After that, other people told me."

"What does he do with it?"

"He takes people to dinner. He's asked me to go away with him for a few days."

"Where?"

"He hasn't settled on a place. He likes finding out whether I'll go."

The waiter brought the drinks. Brett took a long drink of the brandy and soda and set the glass down carefully.

"Did you tell him you would?" I asked.

"I said I might."

"That ought to keep him occupied."

"Oh, he's occupied. He has a car and a secretary and an enormous house somewhere in England. He goes about telling one what each of them costs."

"He sounds like a pleasant fellow."

"He is pleasant. That's what makes it difficult."

At the next table the man got through his story. The women laughed, and he looked around to see who else had heard it. Brett lifted her glass to me.

"Here's to Lionel Whitcomb."

We drank. She put her glass down and watched me.

"You ought to go away with him," I said.

"I dare say I ought."

I wanted her to stay with me.

A taxi stopped across the boulevard and four people got out of it. They argued with the driver over the fare. He kept pointing at the meter, and one of them leaned into the cab to look. When they had paid him, they came across to our side and went into the café.

"Does he know about tonight?" I asked.

"Lionel? He doesn't know much about any night. I told him I was going dancing."

"Then you were honest with him."

"Perfectly." She smiled. "I should like to be perfectly honest with somebody."

"You can start with the waiter. Tell him what you think of his brandy."

"It's very good brandy."

"Then you need somebody else."

She laughed, and for a while we watched the people coming and going. When the waiter passed, Brett asked for another brandy and soda. I ordered a beer. There was a man standing just inside the door who had been looking for a table since we arrived. Each time he moved toward one, somebody else took it. He finally went in to the bar.

"You said you wanted to be where there were people," I said.

"I did. It's better here."

"What's better?"

"You know."

I did not ask her again. The waiter set down our drinks and took away the empty glasses. Brett rested her elbows on the table. She had taken off her hat, and her hair was flattened where it had been under it. She smoothed it back with both hands.

"You can go back," I said. "They'll still be dancing."

"I know they will."

"They may wonder where you are."

"They know where to find me if they care to look."

I paid the waiter. Brett asked why I was paying when we had only just got there.

"I have to go back to the Bal," I said. "The patronne has my envelope."

"Surely you'll leave it for the girl."

"I'll see whether she's gone."

"She'll be there. She was having a marvelous time when we left."

"Then she can have it from me."

Brett looked at the street. "Go on. I'll stay here."

"I won't be long."

"You don't know that."

"I can take a cab."

"All right. Come back here."

There was a taxi by the curb with its driver asleep behind the wheel. I woke him and gave him the address of the Bal. We drove past the Luxembourg gardens. The iron gates were shut and there was no one on the paths that I could see. At the Panthéon the driver slowed for a cart loaded with empty bottles. The bottles rattled when the cart went over the stones.

There was still music coming from the Bal. The policeman was gone from the door. Inside, the room was hotter than it had been earlier, though there were fewer people in it. The proprietor played the accordion with his eyes on the floor. The bells on his ankle sounded whenever he stamped his foot. At the bar the patronne was adding figures on a piece of paper.

"I've come for the envelope," I said.

She opened a drawer under the bar and brought it out. The seal was still on it.

"The young lady did not ask," she said.

"Is she here?"

The patronne pointed toward the dancing-floor. Georgette was dancing with a short man I had not seen before. She had her hat in one hand, held behind the man's back. When she saw me she said something to him and they finished the dance. She came over with the hat swinging at her side.

"So you've come back," she said.

"Yes."

"You went away with the lady."

"Yes."

"Was she angry with you?"

"No."

"She looked as though she might be."

The music started again. The short man stood beside the floor waiting for Georgette. She looked back at him, then at the envelope in my hand.

"What is that?"

"Something I left here for you."

"Why didn't you give it to me?"

"You were dancing."

"I can stop dancing."

I handed her the envelope. She felt the note through the paper before she put it in her bag.

"You needn't have come all the way back for this," she said.

"I wanted to see if you were still here."

"Now you have seen."

She closed her bag. The short man came up and asked if she wanted to dance. She told him to wait. He went back to the edge of the floor.

"Will you take a cab when you leave?" I asked.

"Perhaps. He lives near me." She looked toward the man. "He says he does."

"You can take a cab."

"I know I can."

We stood by the bar while two couples went past us to the door. Georgette put on her hat and straightened it with the mirror from her bag.

"Your friends are strange," she said. "They asked me a great many questions and never listened to the answers."

"They do that."

"The lady you left with didn't ask me anything."

"She'd heard the others."

Georgette laughed with her mouth closed. Then the short man came over again, and she went to dance with him. She waved to me as he took her out on the floor. I paid the patronne for a beer I had not drunk and went outside.

It felt cool on the street. My driver had waited with the motor running. On the way back to Montparnasse I could feel the beer I had drunk earlier and the pernod before it. I was tired, but I did not want Brett to have gone. At the Dôme the table was empty. I looked inside and saw her at the bar, talking to the waiter who had served us. She was asking him for a match.

"I thought you didn't want a cigarette," I said.

"I didn't then."

She thanked the waiter and lit it. We went back to the table. Someone had taken one of our chairs, and Brett sat while I stood beside her.

"Was Georgette there?"

"Yes. She was dancing."

"And the fifty francs?"

"I gave them to her."

"I knew you'd lose them."

"I brought them back myself."

"That's much worse."

She was smiling. The waiter came out and brought a chair from inside. I thanked him and sat down. Brett asked for the bill for the drink she had had while I was away.

"You don't owe me a report," she said.

"I know."

"I don't know why I asked."

"Because you wanted to know."

"Perhaps."

The crowd thinned. The man who had been telling the story had gone, and one of the women from his table sat alone with her coat on. She watched the waiter clear the glasses. Brett finished her cigarette and pressed it out in the ashtray.

"I told the waiter I had lost you," she said.

"What did he say?"

"He said you would come back."

"He was right."

"He was very certain of it."

We left the café and walked toward the river. Brett put her arm through mine. The streets were nearly empty. Once a newspaper van passed us, with bundles tied high behind the driver. At a crossing we had to wait for a man pushing a handcart. He took his time and did not look up.

"Are you cold?" I asked.

"A little."

"We can get a cab."

"Let's walk a while."

We walked down the Rue de Rennes. Brett talked about a dog she had seen at dinner the week before. It belonged to Lionel Whitcomb and would only eat if he fed it from his hand. She said the dog was sensible. Then she asked what Georgette had said when I came back, and I told her. She wanted to know whether Georgette had been pleased to see me.

"I couldn't tell," I said. "She was pleased with the envelope."

"That doesn't mean she wasn't pleased with you."

"No."

At the river we stopped by the parapet. There was a little light in the sky beyond the roofs. The water was dark and carried scraps of paper slowly past the bridge. Brett leaned on the stone and looked down at it. A man on a bicycle crossed behind us. We heard him go over the bridge and turn away.

"I don't want to go off with Lionel," she said.

"Then don't."

"I haven't told him I would."

"That's easily settled."

"Yes."

She stayed at the parapet. I stood beside her until she said she was cold again. We crossed the quay and found a taxi coming toward us. I raised my hand and the driver pulled in. Brett gave him the address of her hotel.

"Will I see you tomorrow?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Don't be late."

"I won't."

I held the door while she got in. She settled back and put her hat on her knees. The driver started the motor, and I shut the door. I watched the taxi cross the bridge and disappear behind a newspaper van. Then I turned and walked home along the river. It was dawn, and I could see the men opening the bookstalls on the quay.

Letter, Miss Lucy Westenra to Miss Mina Murray.

27 May.

"My dearest Mina,

"Arthur is to dine with Mr. Morris and Dr. Seward this evening. Mr. Morris has invited him with such affection that I cannot feel uneasy on his account, though I wish I could make the evening easier for them all. Arthur came to tell me of it this morning, and brought the invitation in his pocket, folded until it was scarcely fit to be read.

"He asked whether I had any message for his friends. I said that I hoped they would come to see me whenever they pleased, and that I should be hurt if they behaved as though I had lost their friendship by accepting Arthur. He looked at me for a moment and then said, 'You are giving me more than I knew I had asked for.' Wasn't that a strange thing to say? I had supposed he understood me better than anybody, but perhaps lovers have still to make one another's acquaintance.

"Mamma has heard all about our engagement now, though not about the other two proposals. She likes Arthur so much that she finds reasons for his coming here even when he has promised not to come. To-day she sent him a book which she says he must return in person, because the post might damage it. It is an old book on gardening, and has survived twenty years in our drawing-room without injury.

"I have written nonsense, dear, when I meant to write something sensible about you. Have you heard again from Jonathan? I remember that you expected him soon. Tell me when you know the day, and I will keep it free, in case you want someone to whom you can talk about him without being laughed at.

"Your loving

"LUCY."

Dr. Seward's Diary.

(Kept in phonograph.)

28 May. I went to Morris's rooms last night. I had thought of sending an excuse, and could find none that would bear examination. Quincey met me at the door himself. He shook my hand, took my hat, and gave me an account of a troublesome horse he had ridden that afternoon. He did not once look to see how I bore the sight of him. For this I was grateful.

Arthur came a few minutes later. He had a message from Miss Westenra for each of us. She wished us to visit as we had done before, and hoped that neither of us would put ceremony between ourselves and her. Arthur delivered it plainly. I believe he knew that any show of tenderness on his part would make the words harder to hear.

There were three places laid at a round table. Quincey had provided an excellent dinner, and, for the first half-hour, an abundance of talk. We recalled a journey on which Arthur had insisted that a broken compass was sound, because its needle pointed so steadily. Quincey said that if Arthur had married the girl he then admired, he would still be travelling in the same direction. Arthur laughed first, which gave the rest of us leave to do so.

After the servants had gone, Quincey filled our glasses and stood up. He said little. He wished Arthur and Miss Westenra a long life together, and asked that they should remember, when they had need of friends, the two men at his table. Arthur rose and gripped his hand. I followed, and for a few moments none of us spoke. Then Quincey said that we had three full glasses and were neglecting them.

I stayed later than I meant. Arthur told us how he had asked her. He began with the words he had prepared, but she had put both hands on his shoulders before he had finished. He stopped there, embarrassed, and Quincey made him tell the story again from the beginning. When at last we parted, Quincey walked with me as far as the corner. He spoke of his next journey and asked whether I could leave my work for a week. I said I could not. He answered that he had expected as much, but had wished to ask.

I slept for five hours without waking. That is more than I have managed since Monday.

Letter, the Hon. Arthur Holmwood to Miss Lucy Westenra.

29 May.

"My own Lucy,

"I have delayed writing about Quincey's dinner because I wanted first to tell him, and Jack, what your message meant to me. I think they understood it better than I did when you gave it. Both had every reason to stay away from me, yet they contrived to make me welcome and to speak of you with their old affection.

"Quincey made a speech over the wine. He was brief, which is unlike him when he has an audience of friends. Jack said almost nothing, but when we stood to drink your health he put his hand on my arm. I hope you will allow me to bring them both to see you soon. Quincey says he will come only if you promise not to ask him for another of his American expressions. He cannot remember what he said last time and fears that you will catch him repeating himself.

"I called on your mother this afternoon to return her gardening book. She told me that she had found another which might be of use to me. I have brought it away, though I have no garden at present. You may tell her that I shall take great care of it. I suspect she knows why I am so willing to run errands in Chatham Street.

"Ever yours,

"ARTHUR."

Dr. Seward's Diary.

(Kept in phonograph.)

30 May. Renfield asked me this morning, without any question or remark from me to lead him to it, 'Is Miss Westenra to marry Mr. Holmwood, sir?' He had been reading yesterday's paper, which carried notice of the engagement. What interested me was his choice of the question. He had watched my face as I entered, then put the paper down before speaking.

I answered yes. He asked whether I was going to the wedding. I said no day had yet been named. He seemed dissatisfied with this, as though I had failed to answer what he meant to ask, but he would say no more on the matter.

I must take care not to make my own affairs part of my account of him. A man may notice that his doctor is troubled without having any uncommon knowledge of the cause. I have watched Renfield make observations no less exact when his own concerns are at issue. To-day he spoke with perfect composure, and later helped an attendant mend a torn window blind. I wish I understood what governs these changes of temper.

Miss Mina Murray's Journal.

(Kept in shorthand.)

20 June. A letter from Jonathan at last. It is dated the 12th, and says that his business is finished and that he is preparing to come home. I ought to be entirely glad of it. I am glad, but I have read it so often that I have begun to find faults which were not there when I opened it.

He writes as a man does when there is somebody standing beside him waiting for the paper. There is scarcely a word about the country, though he promised to tell me what he saw. Perhaps he has saved it all for our meeting. He has had more work than he expected, and I know how little time a solicitor may call his own when a client is impatient. I shall answer cheerfully and put the letter away. If I read it again to-night I shall only invent another reason to be anxious.

The school term is nearly over. I corrected exercises until my eyes smarted, and then tried to copy one of Jonathan's old shorthand letters on the typewriter. I made so many mistakes that I was ashamed of myself. When he comes back, I shall ask him to dictate something quite dull, so that I may attend to the words instead of wanting to know what happens next.

Letter, Miss Lucy Westenra to Miss Mina Murray.

25 June.

"My dearest Mina,

"I am glad you have had news, though I could hear the worry in your last letter. You said that Jonathan's letter was short. If Arthur wrote to tell me he had finished a difficult piece of business, I should expect him to leave the account of it until he could tell it over dinner. Then I should complain that he had talked of business throughout dinner. You see how hard it is for a gentleman to please us.

"Arthur and Mr. Morris came yesterday. Mamma was out, so they were obliged to put up with my company alone. Mr. Morris declared that Arthur had practised three different ways of asking when he might see me again. Arthur denied it, but did not deny that he had asked. I told them that, if they came together, I should always know which of them had proposed the visit.

"Dr. Seward has sent Mamma the name of a gardener who understands roses. She asked me to thank him. I shall write to him myself, for I do not want him to think that he must send messages through anyone else. He was so kind to me that day, Mina. I hope, when we meet, we may speak to each other easily.

"Write as soon as you know when Jonathan is to arrive. I shall be thinking of you.

"Your loving

"LUCY."

Letter, Herr Emil Kranz to Miss Mina Murray.

"Hotel Adler, Klausenburgh.

"2 July.

"Dear Madam,

"I take the liberty of writing because a message concerning Mr. Jonathan Harker, of Exeter, has been received at this hotel with a request that word be sent to you. The address given was yours, and I hope I do right in using it.

"Mr. Harker has been delayed in his journey by a difficulty with the papers required for his onward passage. The message states that he is well and expects to travel as soon as the matter is settled. No date was given to me, and I should be doing you a poor service if I invented one.

"I must explain that I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Harker. My hotel was named as the place to which replies might be sent, and I have therefore passed on the information exactly as it reached me. Should he arrive here, I shall ask him to write to you himself. You may address a reply to my care if you wish me to deliver it.

"I remain, Madam,

"Your obedient servant,

"EMIL KRANZ,

"Manager."

Miss Mina Murray's Journal.

(Kept in shorthand.)

8 July. Herr Kranz's letter came this morning. I read first the words saying Jonathan was well, and sat with the open paper in my hand until the postman had gone beyond the gate. Then I read the rest.

Mr. Kranz has never seen him. He says so plainly, and I am glad of his honesty, but I wish I knew who sent the message. I have written to the hotel, thanking him and asking that he give Jonathan my letter as soon as he arrives. I enclosed another sheet for Jonathan. It contains every ordinary thing I could think of: the end of term, Lucy's engagement, and the loose step which Mr. Hawkins has promised to have repaired. I could not bring myself to fill it with questions for a man who may be tired of answering them.

His last letter to me bore the date 29 June. It said he was starting, and now this gentleman writes that his journey has been delayed. I have laid both letters side by side. There is no great contradiction in them. Travellers are delayed every day. Yet Jonathan would surely have sent me a word himself if he had been able.

Mr. Hawkins came after luncheon. I showed him the letter, and he read it with more care than I had expected. He knew nothing of Herr Kranz, but said that the address was clear and that my reply should reach the hotel. He offered to make enquiries through the office if no answer came. He did not urge me to be easy in my mind. I was grateful for that, since I could see he was considering the matter as seriously as I was.

Lucy writes that I must spend an afternoon with her when she is next free, and I shall. She can talk of Arthur without knowing how much comfort it gives me to hear her. To-night I shall put my bag in order. It is foolish to prepare for a journey before I know where Jonathan is, but there are things I should want with me if word came suddenly. I have packed the shorthand notebook he gave me. He once said its pages were large enough to hold all my questions. I hope soon to ask them aloud.

Telegram, Sister Agatha to Miss Mina Murray.

9 July.

"Jonathan Harker is with us at Budapest. He begs you to disregard the letters sent lately in his name."