“I beg your pardon, Miss Kent,” said Blair. “But I must tell you. I sent two of those telegrams, and I think I can guess who sent the other. Miss Eliza Thick herself.”
“You!” exclaimed Mr. Kent and both girls in the same breath.
“Yes, Mr. Kent. I blush to confess it, but you and your family have been abominably hoaxed, and I can see nothing for it but to admit the truth. Painful as it is, I prefer to tell you everything.”
The two girls settled themselves on the couch and Mr. Kent, bewildered, sat upright in his chair. The dog, satisfied that everything was serene, jumped on the divan and lay down between Joe and Kathleen. The unhappy Blair stood awkwardly on the hearth rug.
“Last January,” he began, “a gentleman by the name of Kenneth Forbes, an undergraduate of Merton College (now studying the gas meter in your cellar), was in Blackwell's book shop, in Oxford, browsing about. Lying on a row of books in a corner of the shop he happened to see a letter, without an envelope. He picked it up and glanced at it. It had evidently been dropped there by some customer.
“The address engraved on the paper was 318, Bancroft Road, Wolverhampton. It was dated last October and the letter began: 'Dear Joe, Thank you so much for the tie—it is pretty and I do wear ties sometimes, so I sha'n't let the boys have it.' In the upper left-hand corner were four crosses, and the words 'These are from Fred.' The letter was signed 'Kathleen.'”
The two girls looked at each other.
“It so happened,” continued Blair, “that the man who found the letter had promised to write, the very next day, the first chapter of a serial story for a little literary club to which he belonged. At the time when he found this letter lying about the bookshop he was racking his brain for a theme for his opening chapter. A great idea struck him. He put the letter in his pocket and hurried back to his room.
“His idea was to build up a story around the characters of the letter. He had no idea whom it came from or to whom it was addressed. The thought of making these unknown persons of the letter the figures of the story appealed to him, and with an eager pen he set down the first chapter, with 'Kathleen' as heroine and 'Joe' as hero.”
A faint line of colour crept up Kathleen's girlish cheek.