“To tell you the truth, Mr. Carter, even after she had told me who she was, I studied her face, but could not see a line in it that was familiar to me. I believed she was Isabella Porter, all the same.
“I told her that I remembered her name, and then for a time she was silent. She bowed her head, and seemed lost in deep thought.
“Suddenly she glanced up at me.
“‘I’ve called to see you on a peculiar errand,’ she informed me.
“‘What is it?’ I asked.
“‘One night about ten or eleven years ago,’ she said, ‘a man called on you at the Red Dragon Inn and gave you a package to keep.
“‘The man was a stranger to you.
“‘On the package was written the name of Edward Peters.
“‘You put the package in your safe and the man never called for it.’
“She paused and fastened her eyes upon me, Mr. Carter, with that strange, uncanny, searching look—it was certainly peculiar, very peculiar!