"What letter?" enquired Ben, carelessly.
"Well," replied the footman, "I suppose strictly speaking it could hardly be called one. I happened to be handing him something at the table, and was standing just at his shoulder when he opened the envelope, so of course I saw right enough what was in it. It was only half a sheet of ordinary foolscap, and on it was pinned a piece of blue paper of rather an unusual shade. There was nothing written on the blue bit, but on the white was a sentence in large letters a blind man could have read."
"What was it?" asked Ben. "Anything about cross-bones and skulls? Generally they begin that way."
"No," answered Jenkins. "These were the words, and very harmless they seemed to me--just this plain question--
"'WAS IT NOT WRITTEN ON PAPER OF THIS SHADE?'"
"Was that all?" exclaimed Ben, "and yet Field turned green as he read it!"
"Green as a pea-pod," was the reply. "For a minute he stared at the words as if he didn't quite take in their meaning, and then he just crumpled the paper up quick and tossed it right into the fire. A good shot he made too, so I didn't have the satisfaction of picking it out of the grate afterwards. He looked up at me sharp, as if wondering could I have seen anything, but I was gazing straight before me at the big picture on the opposite wall, like the well-trained footman that I am--so of course I saw nothing."
"Queer," remarked Ben. "I wonder why he was so put out. It seems to me that the words were simple enough."
All that day Mr. Field was visibly upset. The mysterious missive of the morning had evidently got upon his nerves, and he could settle down to nothing. As the posts came in he scanned them anxiously, taking good care to open his letters in the privacy of his own room. It was, however, not till the end of the week that something else happened to disturb him still further.
"May I undo your parcels, dad?" asked Julius as he sat at breakfast with his father.