It had been his intention in any case to search the house, and he took a mental note when doing so to look with special care for any such traces. This search, he decided, should be his next business.
On the following morning, therefore, he set out for St. Malo with his assistant, Sergeant Kelvin. As they drove, he explained the theory about the unpacking of the cask, and pointed out what, if this had been done, they might expect to find.
The house was empty as, owing to Felix still being in the hospital, the housekeeper’s leave had been extended. Burnley opened the door with a key from Felix’s bunch and the two men entered.
Then took place a search of the most meticulous thoroughness. Burnley began in the yard and examined each of the out-houses in turn. These had concrete floors and marks of the cask itself were not to be expected, but they were carefully brushed and the sweepings examined with a powerful lens for traces of sawdust. All their contents were also inspected, Felix’s two-seater, which was standing in the coach-house, receiving its full share of attention. Then the searchers moved to the house, one room after another being gone over in the same painstaking way, but it was not till they were doing Felix’s dressing-room, that Burnley made his first discovery.
Several of Felix’s suits were hanging in a press, and in the right-hand side pocket of one of the coats—that of a blue lounge suit—there was a letter. It was crumpled and twisted, as if thrust carelessly into the pocket. Burnley did not at first notice anything interesting or important about it, till, reading it for the second time, it flashed across his mind that here, perhaps, was the very thing for which they had been searching—the link in that chain of evidence against Felix which up to then had been missing.
The letter was written on a sheet of rather poor quality notepaper in a woman’s hand, rather uneducated both as to caligraphy and diction—such a letter, thought Burnley, as might be written by a barmaid or waitress or shopgirl. There was no water or other distinctive mark on it. It bore no address, and ran as follows:—
‘Monday.
‘My Dearest Léon.—It is with a heavy heart I take up my pen to write these few lines. What has happened to you, dearest? Are you ill? If you are, I will come out to you, no matter what happens. I can’t go on without you. I waited in all yesterday hoping you would come, same as I waited in all the Sunday before, and every night of the week, but you didn’t come. And the money is nearly done, and Mrs. Hopkins says if I can’t pay next week I’ll have to go. I’ve sometimes thought you were tired of me and weren’t going to come back at all, and then I thought you weren’t that sort, and that you were maybe ill or away. But do write or come, for I can’t go on any longer without you.
‘Your heartbroken
‘Emmie.’