THE next morning’s post brought some fifty or so letters to Throstle Hall, forwarded on from London.

Letters from Russia, letters from Japan, letters from Paris, Constantinople and Madrid; bills, circulars, lottery announcements, touting letters, begging letters, letters from lunatics, financiers, friends, politicians and enemies.

It was a post the receipt of which would have driven an ordinary man to distraction, but it did not distract Sir Anthony Gyde.

He reviewed them sitting up in bed propped up with pillows, a cup of tea by his side and his correspondence spread upon the coverlet.

He sorted them by the simple process of casting them upon the floor, some on the right, some on the left. The ones on the right went to the waste-paper basket, the ones on the left to his secretary. He had nearly finished, when he came upon an envelope thin and narrow, poverty stricken, stamped in the left-hand corner as if in defiance of convention and addressed in a handwriting unique, in that it managed to be both prim and fantastic.

There are letters, men, streets, and numerous other things in this life, that produce upon the mind of the person who sees them for the first time, an impression to be summed up in the one word—Bad.

The letter in Sir Anthony’s hand would have struck you or me, most probably, with an unfavourable impression, but it did not seem to affect him; he was used to all sorts of impressions.

When you possess a fortune to be reckoned in millions, derived from possessions all over the world, you must accommodate your temper to the receipt of more things than rents and felicitations. Gyde, for instance, was accustomed to receive at least one letter in the course of every month, threatening either his life or his reputation; so accustomed, indeed, that he looked forward perhaps with interest to their receipt.

He opened the murderous and mean-looking letter in his hand, and came upon neither skull nor cross-bones, nor coffin, nor threat, but simply,

“Skirle Cottage,

“Blencarn Fell,

“I will be at home this afternoon at three o’clock. I must see you, without fail, at that hour.

“Klein.”

Leloir, the valet, was in the bath-room stropping a razor, when he heard a stifled cry from the bedroom adjoining; running in, he found his master standing on the floor, holding the bedpost with one hand, whilst with the other he held the letter we have just read.

His face was of that peculiar grey we associate with dam............