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.'