“Yes. Last night I too found a note pushed under the door of my cottage. It stated that a young man who was stopping at the pulp camp would like to meet me here this morning, and that if I honoured the appointment it might be to our mutual interest. So you see I obeyed the mysterious summons.”
“The notes then were most likely written by the same party.”
“Most likely. Mine was in a faint, back-hand scrawl.”
“Some outside party,” he suggested, “must have been seriously interested in our becoming acquainted.”
“One would fancy so.” There came a mischievous light into her blue eyes. “But we are not yet acquainted, are we, Mr. —?”
“Hammond—Louis Hammond,” he supplied.
“Mr. Hammond, I am pleased to meet you.” She rose and extended her little hand. “I am Miss Josephine Stone—or, perhaps you already knew?”
“No—but I confess I have been curious to know, ever since that night our eyes met on the train, or do you remember that?”
“Oh, yes—I do. You must have thought my actions strange that night. But there were so many odd things happened in that coach during the space of a few minutes I had become quite perplexed.”
“That brings us to a point where you might do me a great service, Miss Stone,” Hammond suggested eagerly. “Have you any idea what happened Mr. Gildersleeve?”