CUPID'S BARGAIN
While Jarman was receiving Miss Starth at the door, Miss Cork had brought in the lamp and pulled down the blinds. In the yellow light Mildred could see that his face was pearly white. As Eustace was not usually emotional, she guessed that the paper she had given him must be interesting enough to surprise him out of his ordinary self.
"What is it?" she asked nervously. "Oh! what is it?" Her nerves were slack, poor girl, from the anxieties of the last week.
Jarman did not answer directly. That he should have stumbled on the word "Tamaroo" in this unexpected manner, immediately after telling his story to Frank, surprised him not a little. The coincidence was extraordinary, and, he suspected, providential. He could not see what connection there could be between the murder of Anchor in San Francisco and that of Walter Starth in Sand Lane, but the mysterious word "Tamaroo" seemed to link the two. Perhaps it might prove the clue to the mystery of the last crime. Jarman sat down to hurriedly arrange his thoughts, but he was unable to answer Mildred for a time. After her exclamation she remained quiet, clasping and unclasping her hands, shaken to the core of her soul by the disturbed looks of this ordinarily phlegmatic man.
"I don't know what it means," confessed Jarman finally, and looked again at the paper. "This is written by an uneducated person, and by one who knows Lancaster well enough to address him by his Christian name. Who slipped it into your hand?"
"I don't know," said Mildred again. "I was passing out with the crowd after the verdict had been given, and I felt this being pushed into my hand. My fingers closed on it mechanically. For the moment I never thought to look round for the person. When I examined it outside it was, of course, too late."
"H'm! That's a pity. If we could only find who wrote it there might be some chance of clearing up the mystery."
"Then you think there _is_ a mystery, Mr. Jarman?"
"About your brother's death? Certainly I do. I know Lancaster very well. Indeed, it was I who introduced him to your brother, and I am absolutely certain that he is not the man to commit so brutal a crime."
"But his threats on the previous night?" objected Mildred.