With great deliberation he took a letter-case from his pocket and from it extracted a sheet of paper which he handed over to me. It was lined paper, torn evidently from a notebook, and on it was printed in capitals:
YOU ARE ON THE WRONG
TRAIL ALTOGETHER. IF
YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO
KILLED CLEVEDON KEEP
YOUR EYE ON THOYNE.
“That is No. 1,” Pepster said. “Here is No. 2.”
He handed me a second document, but this time it was a plain white paper on which the ink had run rather badly, though the letters were quite legible. It was, too, much shorter, simply reading:
THOYNE MURDERED CLEVEDON.
“Anonymous letters by some crank, who thinks he has made a discovery,” I remarked.
“Yes,” Pepster agreed, “but here is No. 3.”
The third communication was written in red ink on a buff-coloured slip of paper, such as Government offices use, and read:
YOU ARE MISSING YOUR
LIFE’S CHANCE. ARREST
THOYNE AND I WILL PRODUCE
THE EVIDENCE.
TRUST ME.
“Were they addressed to you personally?”