And thus it came about that Jack Denver received the following morning a letter in a writing that made his hand shake uncontrollably as he opened the envelope.
“Hubert, for some astounding reason, is anxious for you to come and stay. As for me—I think I shall go mad I don’t see you again soon. If you think it unwise, plead duty as an excuse. But I think you’ll have to come soon, or else the sudden cessation of your visits here will make H. suspicious. Come for the weekend.
“H. G.”
He stared at his untasted breakfast; then he shrugged his shoulders. So be it. And his answer was duly delivered at the Pines.
“Dear Mrs. Garling,—
“How charming of you! I fear you must have thought I was dead, but we do work—sometimes! I’ll come in time for lunch on Saturday if I may.
“Yours sincerely,
“Jack Denver.”
And now dinner was over, and she was still as far as ever from getting the answer to her question. Why had Hubert done it? All through the afternoon he had been uniformly charming; he couldn’t suspect anything; he couldn’t. He was talking now about the tower—a strange architectural freak which stuck up from one corner of the house like a funnel on a locomotive.
“It’s an old house,” he was saying in his cultured, rather gentle voice. “And I can’t quite make out who erected that tower originally. It was put up after the house itself was built, but for what purpose is a little obscure. It certainly can’t have been entirely erected as a tomb.”