“What do you make of it?” she went on. “I don’t know a word of German, but it seems to be the name of a place.”
Fayre came slowly back to the table and picked up the envelope. His face had regained its normal colour and there was nothing in his manner to show that he had just had, perhaps, the greatest shock of his life. He was a good German scholar, but he did not enlighten Miss Allen as to the full meaning of the inscription he had just read.
“It seems to have come from a place called Schleefeldt,” he said, examining the envelope narrowly as he spoke. “You’ve no idea, I suppose, how your sister got it?”
“None. She had no connection with Germany that I know of, either before or after the war, though she may have been there when she was abroad. She was on the Continent a good deal and had a good many friends there. There was nothing in the box that seemed to have any connection with the photograph. It was lying on the top, in the envelope, just as you saw it, when I first came on it.”
“We may take it, then, that it was probably one of the last things she put into the box,” suggested Fayre.
“It looked like it, certainly.”
Fayre picked up the topmost packet of receipts and pulled one out. It was dated 1926.
“You don’t know at all when your sister last asked for this box at the bank?” he asked.
Miss Allen shook her head.
“I could find out, I suppose. But I do know that my sister only sent it to the bank with her plate when she left her London flat about two months ago, so that she had access to it up till then. I believe she stayed on in town for a bit after giving up her flat, so she may have had the box out again. Do you want me to find out?”