Simon was stunned.
"It's dreadful!" he muttered. "Again, that particular way of striking! . . ."
After a short pause, he asked:
"Do you know nothing of the contents of the letter?"
"From some words exchanged by Lord Bakefield and his daughter the maid gathered that they were discussing the wreck of the Queen Mary, the steamer on which Miss Bakefield had been shipwrecked the other day and which must be lying high and dry by now. Miss Bakefield appears to have lost a miniature."
"Yes," said Simon, thoughtfully, "yes, I dare say. But it is most distressing that this letter was not placed in my own hands. The maid ought never to have given it up."
"Why should she have been suspicious?"
"What! Of the first person she met?"
"But she knew him."
"She knew this man?"