Mr. Hawtrey and his daughter were sitting at breakfast a fortnight
later, the only other person present being a cousin, Mrs. Daintree, who
had come up to stay with them for the season to act as chaperon to
Dorothy. She had been unwell and unable to form one of the party at
Epsom. The servant brought in the letters just as they sat down,
carrying them as usual to his master, as Dorothy was busy with the tea
things. As Mr. Hawtrey looked through them his eye fell upon a letter.
On the back was written in a bold handwriting, 'Unless the money is sent
I shall use letters.--E. T.'
He turned it over, it was directed to his daughter. He was about to
speak, but as his eye fell on Mrs. Daintree he checked himself, placed
the missive among his own letters, and passed those for his daughter and
cousin across to them. He was very silent during breakfast. Dorothy
detected by his voice that something was wrong with him, and asked
anxiously if he was not feeling well. When the meal was over he said to
her:
'Before you go out, Dorothy, look in upon me in the library.'
Ten minutes later she came into the room.
'Dorothy,' he said, 'are you in any trouble?'
'Trouble, father?' she repeated, in surprise. 'No; what sort of trouble
do you mean?'
'Well, dear,' he said kindly, 'girls do sometimes get into scrapes. I
did not think you were the sort of girl to do so, but these things are
more often the result of thoughtlessness than of anything more serious,
and the trouble is that instead of going frankly to their friends and
making a clean breast of it, girls will try and set matters right
themselves, and so, in order to avoid a little unpleasantness, may ruin
their whole lives.'
Dorothy's eyes opened more and more widely as her father went on.
'Yes, father, I have heard of such things, but I don't know why you are
saying so to me. I have never got into any scrape that I know of.'
'What does this mean then?' he said, handing her the envelope.
She read it with an air of bewilderment, looked at the address, and
re-read the words.
'I have not the faintest idea, father.'
'Open the envelope,' he said sternly. She broke the seal, but there was
no enclosure whatever. 'You do not know who this E. T. is? You have not
written any letters that you would not care to have read aloud? You have
had no demand for money for their delivery? Wait a moment before you
speak, child; I don't mean for a moment that there could be anything
wrong in any letter that you have written. It can only be that in some
country house where you have been staying, you have got into some
foolish flirtation with some one, and have been silly enough to
correspond with him. I will not suppose that a man to whom you would
write would be blackguard enough to trade upon your weakness, but the
letters may have fallen into some one else's hands; his valet, perhaps,
who, seeing your engagement to Lord Halliburn, now seeks to extort money
from you by threatening to send your letters to him. If so, my dear
child, speak frankly to me. I will get the letters back, at whatever
cost, and will hand them to you to burn, without looking at them, and
will never mention the subject again.'
'There is nothing of the sort, father. How could you think that I could
do anything so foolish and wrong? Surely you must know me better than
that.'
'I thought I did, Dorothy; but girls do foolish things, especially when
they are quite young and perhaps not out of the schoolroom, and know
nothing whatever of the world. They fancy themselves in love, and are
foolish enough sometimes to allow themselves to be entrapped into
correspondence with men of whose real character they know nothing; it is
a folly, but not one to deal hardly with.'
'At any rate, father, I have not done so. If I had I would say so at
once. I have not the remotest idea what that letter means, or who wrote
it. If it were not that it had my name and address on the other side, I
should not have had an idea that it was meant for me. Except trifling
notes of invitation and that sort of thing I do not think that I had
ever written to any man until I was engaged to Algernon.'
'Well, that is a relief,' Mr. Hawtrey said, more cheerfully than he had
before spoken. 'It was a pain to me to think even for a moment that you
could have been so foolish. It never entered my head to think that you
could have done anything absolutely wrong. However, we must now look at
this rascally letter from another point of view. Here is a man writing
to demand a sum of money for letters. Now, it is one of two things.
Either he has forged letters in his possession, for which he hopes to
extort money, or he has no letters of any kind, and his only intention
in writing in this manner on an envelope is in some way to cause you
pain and annoyance. We may assume that the initials are fictitious;
whoever wrote the letter would certainly avoid giving any clue to his
identity. Sit down, Dorothy. We must talk the matter over quietly and
see what had best be done.'
'But this is dreadful, father!' Dorothy said, as she seated herself in
an arm-chair.
'Not dreadful, dear, though I admit that it is unpleasant, very
unpleasant; and we must, if possible, trace it to the bottom, for now
that this annoyance has begun there is no saying how much farther it may
be pushed. Is there anyone you can think of who would be likely to have
a spite against you? I do not say any of the four or five gentlemen
whose proposals you have declined in the course of the past year; all
were gentlemen and beyond suspicion. Any woman servant you may have
dismissed; any man whose request for money for one purpose or another
you may have refused; anyone, in short, to whom you may have given
offence?'
'Not that I know of, father. You know my last maid left to get married,
and I had nothing to do with hiring or discharging the other servants;
they are all under the housekeeper. I really do not know of anyone who
has cause for ill-feeling against me.'
'I shall write at once to the Postmaster General and request him to give
orders that no more letters of the kind shall be openly delivered.
Peters can hardly have helped reading it; it has evidently been written
in a large, bold handwriting, so that it can be read at a glance. Of
course, I shall speak to him, but he will probably have chatted about it
downstairs already. I shall go down to Scotland Yard and inform them of
the annoyance, and ask their advice there, though I don't see that they
can do anything until we can furnish them with some sort of clue. We may
find one later on; this envelope certainly gives us nothing to go on,
but we may be sure others will follow.'
'It is dreadful, father,' Dorothy repeated, as she rose, 'to think that
such malicious letters as this can be sent, and that they may be talked
about among the servants.'
'Well, I do not think there will be any more coming here, dear. I should
imagine the Post Office authorities will have no objection to retain
them. If there should be any difficulty about it, I will have a lock put
on the letter-box and keep the key myself, so that, at least, the
servants here will know nothing about it. Are you going out with your
cousin this morning?'
'I was going, but I shall make some excuse now; I could not be
chattering about all sorts of things with her.'
'That is just what you must do, Dorothy. It has taken the colour out of
your cheeks, child, though I suppose cold water and a rub with a hard
towel will bring it back again, but, at any rate, do not go about as if
you had something on your mind. You may be sure that the servants will
be looking at you curiously, whatever I may say to Peters; if they see
you are in no way disturbed or annoyed, the matter will soon pass out of
their minds, but, on the other hand, if they notice any change, they
will be saying to themselves there must be something in it.'
As soon as his daughter had left the room Mr. Hawtrey touched the bell.
'I am going out, Peters; if anyone calls to see me you can say that I
shall not be in till lunch-time. I may be detained at Scotland Yard. I
am going there to set the police on the track of the fellow who sent
that letter to Miss Hawtrey this morning. I suppose you noticed it?'
'Yes, sir,' the man replied, in a hesitating tone; 'as I took the
letters out of the box and laid them on the hall table, the envelope was
back upwards, and I could not help seeing what was on it.'
'I can quite understand that, Peters, and am not blaming you. The words
were evidently written with the intention that they should be read by
everyone through whose hands it passed. It is evidently the work of some
malicious scoundrel, though we have not, of course, the slightest clue
as to whom it may be, but I have no doubt the police will be able to get
on his track. If you have mentioned it to any of the other servants,
tell them that on no account is the matter to be spoken of outside the
house. Our only chance of catching the scoundrel is that he should be
kept entirely in the dark. Probably the fellow is in communication with
some one either in the house or acquainted with one of the servants. If
he hears nothing about it, he may suppose the letter has not attracted
notice, as he intended it should do, and we shall have some more of
them, and this will increase our chance of finding him.'
'I have not mentioned anything about it, sir.'
'All the better, Peters. Should another come do not bring it in with the
other letters, but hand it in to me privately. Miss Hawtrey is naturally
greatly pained and annoyed, and I should not wish her to know if any
more letters come.'
'It is hardly a matter that we can take up,' an inspector at Scotland
Yard said when Mr. Hawtrey showed him the envelope and explained the
matter. 'I suppose at bottom it is an attempt to extort money, though
one does not see how the writer intends to go about it. If there should
be any offer to drop the annoyance on the receipt of a sum of money sent
to a post-office or shop, to be called for, we would take it up, watch
the place, and arrest whoever comes for the letter. At present there is
nothing to go upon, and I don't see that we can do anything in the
matter. If you think it worth while you might put it into private hands,
but it would cost you a good deal of money, and I don't see that anyone
could help you much.'
'I do not care what it costs,' Mr. Hawtrey said hotly. 'Can you
recommend any of these private detectives?'
The inspector shook his head.
'There are some trustworthy men among them, sir, and some thorough
rogues, but we make a point of never recommending anyone. No doubt your
own solicitor would be able to tell you of some good man to go to.'
Mr. Hawtrey hailed a cab when he went out and told the man to drive to
Essex Street. Just as he turned down from the Strand he saw Danvers turn
out from the approach to the Middle Temple. He stopped the cab and
jumped out.
'I was just going to my lawyer,' he said, 'but I dare say, Danvers, you
can save me the loss of time. It generally means at least half an hour's
waiting before he is disengaged. Can you tell me of a shrewd fellow who
can be trusted to undertake a difficult piece of business?'
'That is rather vague, Mr. Hawtrey,' Danvers laughed. 'I might reply
that such a man stands before you.'
'No, I mean a sort of detective business.'
'There are plenty of shrewd fellows who call themselves private
detectives, Mr. Hawtrey. A good many of them are too shrewd altogether.
Of course, I have been in contact with several of them, and the majority
are rogues of the first water. Still, there are honest men among them.
If I knew a little more what sort of work you wanted done I should be
better able to tell what kind of man you require for it.'
'It is a deucedly unpleasant business, Danvers, but I will gladly tell
you what it is, for I want the advice of some one like yourself,
accustomed to deal with difficult cases. Can you spare ten minutes?'
'With pleasure. I have no case on to-day. Will you come to my chambers?
It is not half a minute's walk, and they are on the ground floor.'
'What do you think of it, Danvers?' Mr. Hawtrey asked, after he had
shown the envelope and related briefly his interview with his daughter.
'I don't know what to think of it,' Danvers said after a pause. 'Knowing
Miss Hawtrey as I have the pleasure of doing, I, of course, entertain no
doubt whatever of the truth of her denial, and believe she is as
completely in the dark as yourself as to what this thing means. I must
own that it is not often that I should take a young lady's word so
implicitly in such a matter. I have seen and still more heard from
solicitors of so many astounding cases of the troubles girls have got
into, sometimes from thoughtlessness only, sometimes, I am bound to
confess, from what seems to me to be an entire absence of moral
perception, that scarcely anything in that way would surprise me.
'That Miss Hawtrey would do anything absolutely wrong is to me out of
the question; though she might, from thoughtlessness, when a girl, as
you put it to her, have got into some silly entanglement, for such
things happen continually; but after the line you took up with her I can
but dismiss this from my mind as altogether out of the question, and we
must look at the matter entirely from the point of view that it is
either an attempt to extort money, or is simply the outcome of sheer
malice, an attempt to give pain, and to cause extreme annoyance. Miss
Hawtrey is, you say, wholly unaware of having at any time given such
offence to anyone as to convert him or her into an enemy. Of course,
there are people who are just as bitter over an imaginary injury as over
a real one, but I am more inclined to think that this letter is the
result of malice than an attempt to extort money.'
'I do not see how money could be extorted by such a letter as this, when
there is no foundation for the threat.'
'Quite so, Mr. Hawtrey. No one who wanted to blackmail a young lady
would proceed in so clumsy a manner as this. He would write to her, to
begin with, a letter full of vague hints and threats, in the hope that
although he himself was ignorant of any occurrence in her life that
would give him a hold upon her, her own conscience might bring to her
remembrance some act of past folly or thoughtlessness which, with an
engagement just made, she would certainly shrink from having raked up.
For instance, she might have had some foolish flirtation, some
sentimental correspondence, or stolen meeting--things foolish but in no
way criminal--that at such a moment she would not wish to be brought to
the ears of the man to whom she was engaged. A cleverly but vaguely
worded letter might then cause her to believe that this affair was known
to the writer, and she would endeavour to hush it up by paying any sum
in her power.
'Having written two or three letters of this kind without success, her
persecutor might then send an envelope like this to show her that he was
thoroughly resolved to carry out his threats unless she agreed to his
terms. But as a first move it can mean nothing; and the person to whom
it is addressed, knowing that it has already been seen by the postman,
the servants, and perhaps by others, would in any case be driven to hand
it over to her friends. Miss Hawtrey has received no preliminary
letters, therefore it is clear to me that this is not an attempt to
extort money. We have nothing, therefore, to fall back upon but the idea
of sheer malice, and I have known so many cases of wanton and ingenious
mischief-making, arising from such paltry and insufficient causes, that
I can be surprised at nothing.'
'Still, I don't see how anyone could do such an infamous and cruel thing
as this, Danvers, without some real cause for malice. My daughter is
altogether unconscious of having an enemy, there is nothing for us to go
upon, and I do not see how the business of discovery is to be
commenced.'
'At present, certainly, we seem to have no clue to help us. The letter
was posted, you see, in London, but that is of no use whatever; were it
from a small country town or rural district the matter would be
comparatively easy, but London is hopeless. I have no doubt some more
letters of this kind will come, and I should say that although the
post-marks may afford you no information, the postal authorities might
be able to help you. I do not know whether the stamps at all the
district post offices are identical, but it is possible that there may
be some private mark on them, some little peculiarity, by which the
post-office people would be able to tell you the office at which it was
posted.
'But even this would help us but little, as the letters are collected
and sent to the central district office, and are there, I believe,
stamped. At any rate, I see no use in your employing a man now, Mr.
Hawtrey. If you get a clue, even the smallest, I have a fellow in my
mind's eye who would, I think, suit you. He was at one time a clerk with
Buller and Sons. They gave up the criminal part of their business when
the eldest son, who had charge of that branch, died, and this man,
Slippen, was no longer wanted. He then set up on his own account, as a
sort of private detective. He has been employed in two or three delicate
cases in which I have held briefs, and is certainly a very shrewd
fellow.'
'It would be a relief to me to be doing something,' Mr. Hawtrey said. 'I
think I should like to see the man.'
Danvers was silent for a minute.
'I think, Mr. Hawtrey,' he said at last, 'it would be better if you were
to entrust the matter to me. I will see him, and without mentioning
names state the facts, and say that he may be asked to undertake the
case later on. The fewer people know of the affair the better. Whispers
will get about, and whispers would be more unpleasant than if the whole
story were told openly in court. If you like I will send my clerk over
to his place at once and make an appointment for him to come round here
this afternoon. If you are going to be at home this evening I will look
in and tell you what his opinion of the matter is, and whether he has
any suggestions to offer. If that will not suit you I will meet you
to-morrow at any time you may appoint.'
'This evening will do very well, Danvers. Dorothy is going with her
cousin and a party to the theatre, so if you will come round any time
after eight o'clock you will find me alone, and we can have our chat
over a glass of port and a cigar.'
* * * * *
'Well, have you seen your man?' he asked, as Danvers came into his study
that evening. 'But do not answer until you have made yourself
comfortable, and poured yourself out a glass of port; do not light your
cigar for a few minutes, the wine is too good to be spoilt.'
'Yes, I have seen him,' Danvers replied, as he followed his instructions
deliberately.
'And what does he say?'
'Well, you see, Mr. Hawtrey, he has not the advantage we have of knowing
the lady. He naturally has seen a good deal of the seamy side of life,
and upon my stating the case to him, he said, without a moment's
hesitation, "Of course the thing is as plain as a pikestaff, Mr.
Danvers. The man has got hold of some secret, or is holding some
compromising letters, and has tried to get her to come to terms. She
hangs back and he shows his teeth, and writes her this open message,
which, if it had not happened to fall into her father's hands, would no
doubt have brought her to her knees at once."
'My assurance that it was absolutely certain that the lady in question
was in entire ignorance of the whole affair, and was as much in the dark
as we were as to the author of the letter, was received by him with
incredulity. "I have been concerned in cases like this, or at least a
good deal like it, a dozen--or, I might say, a score--of times. In every
case the lady maintained stoutly that she knew nothing about it, that
she had never written a letter to any man whatever, and had received
none previous to the one that happened to fall into the wrong hands. In
three or four instances I was deceived myself, but there is no telling
with women. When a man tells a lie, he either hesitates or stumbles, or
he says it off as if it were a lesson he had got by heart, or else he is
sulky over it, and you have to get it out of him bit by bit, just as if,
though he had made up his mind to lie, he did not wish to tell more lies
than necessary. With a woman it is altogether different. When she makes
up her mind to tell a lie, she does it thoroughly. Sometimes she is
indignant, sometimes she is plaintive; but, anyhow, she is so natural
that she would deceive Old Nick himself. Most of them are born
actresses, sir, and when they take up a part they do it with the
determination of carrying it through thoroughly." Of course, I told him
that, whatever it might be generally, this case was altogether an
exception; that it was a moral and absolute certainty that the lady had
nothing to do with it, and that the investigation, when it was once
undertaken, would have to proceed, say, on the line that the author of
these communications was a man or a woman having a personal enmity
against a lady, and instigated by a desire to annoy and pain her.
'"Well, sir," he said, "of course, if you employ me in this matter it
will be my business to carry it out according to instructions; but I am
afraid that it is not likely anything will come of my search."
'"But," I said, "there is nothing impossible or improbable in the fact
that someone should have a grudge against her; she has just become
engaged to be married."
'"That alters the case altogether," he said quickly; "there may be some
other woman who wants to marry the man, or there may be some one who may
consider that she will be left in the lurch if this marriage comes off;
and either of these might endeavour to make a scandal, or to get up a
quarrel that might cause the engagement to be broken off. If you had
mentioned about the engagement before, that is the first idea that would
have occurred to me. There are very few things a jealous woman will
stick at. The case looks more hopeful now, and when I come to know the
man's name, I ought very soon to be able to put my finger on the writer
of the letter, if it is a woman. At any rate, if there is no other clue,
that is the one I should take up first."
'That brought our interview to an end. I paid him a couple of guineas
for his advice, and he fully understood that he might, or might not, be
called in on some future occasion.'
'It is a confounded nuisance,' Mr. Hawtrey said thoughtfully; 'is the
fellow really trustworthy, Danvers?'
'He can be trusted to keep the matter to himself,' the barrister said;
'these men are engaged constantly in delicate business, such as getting
up divorce suits, and it would ruin their business altogether were they
to allow a word to escape them as to the matter in hand. At any rate, I
know enough about Slippen to be able to answer for his discretion.
However, I hope that there will be no occasion to move in the matter at
all. Of course you will not do so unless there is a repetition of the
annoyance?'
'I have little hope there will not be, Danvers,' Mr. Hawtrey groaned;
'whoever wrote that letter is certain to follow it up. Whatever effect
it was intended to produce he could hardly count on its being effected
by a single attack.'
'I own that I am afraid so, too,' Danvers agreed. 'You will, I hope, let
me know if it is so.'
'That you may be sure. I am afraid that now you have taken the trouble
to aid me in the matter, you will have to go through with it altogether.
This is utterly out of my line; anything connected with poaching or
stealing fruit, or drunken assaults, my experience as a county
magistrate enables me to treat with something like confidence, but here
I am altogether at sea and your experience as a barrister is of the
greatest benefit to me. What time do you get to your chambers in the
morning?'
'I am almost always there by half-past nine, and between that hour and
half past ten you are almost certain to find me; but if you come later
my clerk will be able to find me in the courts, and unless I am engaged
in a case being tried I can always come out to you.'
'I have been wanting to see you, father,' Miss Hawtrey said, as soon as
the latter returned home, 'I expect Lord Halliburn will be here soon
after lunch, and cousin Mary and I are going with him to the Botanical.
Had I better tell him about this or not?'
'That is a difficult question to answer, Dorothy, and I should be sorry
to offer any advice about it. You know Lord Halliburn a good deal better
than I do, and can best judge how he will take a matter like this; he
must certainly be told sooner or later, for even if there is no
repetition of this before your marriage there may be afterwards. Many
men would laugh at the whole thing, and never give it a moment's
thought, while others, although they would not doubt the assertion of
the woman they were engaged to, would still fret and worry over it
amazingly.'
'I am sure he would not doubt me for a moment, father, but I should
think that he really might worry over it.'
'That is rather my opinion too, Dorothy; still, it is clear that he must
be told either by you or me. However, there is no occasion to tell him
to-day. A flower show is not the place you would choose for the purpose,
even if you had not Mary Daintree with you. We shall see if another
letter comes or not; if it does he must be told at once.'
Dorothy looked a little relieved at the necessity for telling Lord
Halliburn being postponed for the day.
'It is of no use worrying over it, my dear,' her father said kindly. 'It
is an annoyance, there is no denying, but it is nothing to fret over,
and as the insinuations are a pack of lies the cloud will blow away
before long.'
The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Mr. Hawtrey drove to
the central post office, where the postal authorities had promised the
day before that they would retain any communications of the kind he
described. He had been introduced to the official in charge of the
department where complaints of stolen letters were investigated and
followed up.
'I have an envelope for you, Mr. Hawtrey,' that gentleman said, when he
entered, 'and have been more fortunate than I expected, for I can tell
you where it was posted; it was dropped into the letter-box at No. 35
Claymore Street, Chelsea. It is a grocer's shop. In tying up the bundles
the man's eye fell on this; it struck him at once as being an attempt to
annoy or extort money, and he had the good sense to put it into an
envelope and send it on here with a line of explanation, so as to leave
us the option of detaining it if we thought fit.'
'I am very pleased to hear it,' Mr. Hawtrey said. 'It is a great thing
to know there is at least one point from which we can make a start.'
'It is not much, but it may assist you. You must remember, however, that
it is scarcely likely that the next letter will be posted at the same
office; fellows of this kind are generally pretty cautious, and the next
letter may come from another part of London altogether. I have sent a
note to the man at this post office, telling him that he did right in
stopping the letter, and that he is to similarly detain any others of
the same kind that may be posted there. I will send them on to you. The
men on your round have been already ordered not to deliver any letters
of the kind, but to send them back here. I sincerely hope, Mr. Hawtrey,
that you may succeed in getting hold of the fellow, but if you do I am
afraid it will not be through our department; the chances against
detecting a man posting a thing of this kind are almost infinite.'
It was just half past ten when Mr. Hawtrey reached Danvers' chambers. He
found that the occupier had not yet gone to the Court.
'There is another of them,' Mr. Hawtrey said, throwing the letter down
before him. 'I got it at the central office.' It was in the same
handwriting as that on the previous day: 'Unless you agree to my terms
your letters will be sent to Lord H----.' 'The post-office people have
discovered that this letter was posted at a receiving office at Claymore
Street, Chelsea.'
'That would be valuable, Mr. Hawtrey, if there were any probability of
the next being posted at the same place. I could make an arrangement to
have a boy placed inside by the box so that he could see each letter as
it fell in. Then he would only have to run out and follow whoever had
posted it. I should probably require some special order from the
Postmaster-General for this, but I dare say I could get that. At any
rate, we can wait a day or two. If the next letter is posted there we
will try that plan; if it is posted elsewhere it will, of course, be
useless.'
Mr. Hawtrey next drove to Lord Halliburn's, in Park Lane.
'I have come on very unpleasant business, Halliburn,' he said. 'Dorothy
would have told you herself about it yesterday, but I thought it better
to let it stand over for a day, especially as she would not have an
opportunity of discussing it with you,' and he then laid the two letters
before him, and told him the steps he had taken and the conjectures that
he and Danvers had formed on the subject of the sender.
Lord Halliburn was a young man of about nine-and-twenty. He somewhat
prided himself on his self-possession, and, although generally liked,
was regarded, as Danvers had told his friend, as somewhat of a prig. His
face expressed some annoyance as he heard the story.
'It is certainly unpleasant,' he said. 'I am, of course, perfectly sure
that Dorothy is in no way to blame in the matter. This can be only a
malicious attempt to annoy her. Still, I admit it is annoying. Things of
this sort are sure to get about somehow. I am certain that everyone who
knows Dorothy will see the matter in the same light as we do, but those
who do not will conclude that there is something in it. Probably enough
ere long there will be a mysterious paragraph in one of those society
papers. Altogether it is certainly extremely annoying. The great thing
is to find out who sent them. I quite agree with you it cannot be an
attempt to extort money; had it been so, the demands would have been
sent under seal and not in this manner. I suppose you have no idea of
anyone having any special enmity against either you or her?'
'Not the slightest. The man who, as I told you, Danvers consulted
without mentioning any names, was of opinion that it might be the work
of some woman, and was intended to cause unpleasantness between you and
Dorothy. Of course, in that case you might be more able to form an idea
as to the writer than I can be.'
'No, indeed, there is no woman in my case,' Lord Halliburn said. 'I have
always been perfectly free from entanglements of that kind; nor have I
ever had anything like a serious flirtation before I met Miss Hawtrey;
indeed, as you know, I have been travelling abroad almost constantly
since I left college. I can assure you, on my honour, that I cannot
think of anyone who could have a motive, however slight, for making
mischief between us. Of course, it would be out of the question that
mischief could be made out of such things as these; they are too
contemptible for notice, beyond the fact that they are naturally
annoying. I shall see Dorothy this afternoon, and shall tell her not to
give the matter a thought, but at the same time I shall be extremely
glad if you can put your hand on the sender of these things.'