Lunch passed without incident—Janet did not look at me once—but afterward, as we were leaving the dining-room, with a whispered “Take this,” she handed me a folded note. I went up-stairs to my bedroom at once to read it.
“Dear Mr. Jeffcock,”—it ran—“I am going out this afternoon and shall not be back until four o’clock. If an opportunity occurs will you please tell Miss Hunter that you saw me coming out of the doctor’s bedroom before lunch; that you heard me tell him that I had been dusting, and that you noticed that I hadn’t any duster. Just tell her that you thought it rather curious. I don’t want to tell her myself, but I do want her to guess that I have been searching the doctor’s room. Please burn this.”
There was no signature, and I folded it up and put it carefully away in my pocketbook in spite of her request; it was my first letter from Janet and whatever its contents it should be preserved. As for its contents, I could not understand them at all. Think as I would, and I sat on the edge of my bed for a full quarter of an hour thinking as hard as the sweltering heat would let me, I could read neither sense nor reason into her request. If, for some reason or other, she wanted Margaret to know that she was working with Allport, why could she not tell her right out, instead of adopting this roundabout device? If, on the other hand, she still desired to keep her true identity hidden from the rest, why should she tell even Margaret that she had been searching the doctor’s room?
After a time, I gave up my attempt to follow the reasoning that led to the writing of the letter, and concentrated my attention on trying to carry out the instructions it contained. The two boys had been reduced to their chess again and were playing in the drawing-room. In neither the house nor the garden could I find Margaret, and I concluded that she had gone to her room to lie down, so I had perforce to amuse myself as best I might by reading the paper and by watching the two at their funereal game.
Three o’clock came and then half past three, and I was beginning to think that I should be unable to do as Janet wished when Margaret joined us and surprisingly asked me to go into the garden with her.
“Come up behind the garage,” she said, “I want to show you something.”
Full of curiosity, and wondering whether what she had got to show might not have some bearing on Janet’s strange request, I followed her up the garden and we sat down on the bench behind the garage where I had caught Allport talking to Janet.
“You remember that newspaper that was found in the chest of drawers in your bedroom?” Margaret began.
“Yes.”
“Well, you know, I always felt somehow that you might have put it there yourself after all—forgive me for saying so—and that it might have been you who put up the second notice over the switch, you see you found it and had such a chance to put——”