I wasted no time to do his bidding.
There were three tiny pieces of paper, just as I had thought. I took them carefully from the little ledge on which they were resting, and crawled out triumphantly from under the bed.
“Good man!” he grinned. “What are they—exactly—now you’ve fished ’em out? Pieces of a last week’s hotel-bill or an announcement of the local flower-show?”
I shook my head. “Remains of a letter,” I grunted—“there’s handwriting here.”
I handed the fragments to him. He took them eagerly. They were obviously small parts of a letter that had been carelessly torn up by somebody in the room, and in the throwing-away process had by some freak of wind or whimsicality, fluttered to the skirting-board. So I reasoned. Anthony spread them out.
I reproduce the three pieces here as nearly as I can remember them after so long an interval.
I will meet you in the B so
when you Mary.
at 1.
I gasped! “Good Lord!” I exclaimed. Anthony raised his eyebrows.
“What’s this?” he interrogated. “An assignation? Mary?”
“It’s Mary Considine,” I answered. “It’s her handwriting—I’ve seen it too frequently not to know it. Has she written that to Prescott?”