“Never. Mr. Penfield refused to divulge the slightest hint of its contents. But I feel convinced that it was in some way connected with Dan’s disappearance. You remember it arrived on the day after Dan went away. I think Dr. Thorndyke called on Mr. Penfield to see if he could glean any information, but I assume that he didn’t succeed.”
“We can take that for granted,” said Rodney. “I don’t think Thorndyke would get much out of a wary old bird like Penfield. But we must find out what was in that letter. Penfield will have to produce it if we put him in the witness-box, though he will be a mighty slippery witness. However, I will see Thorndyke and ask him about it when I have consulted Barnby. Perhaps I had better take charge of the letter.”
Margaret handed him the letter, which he put securely in his wallet, and, the plan of action being now settled, he stayed only for a little further gossip and then took his leave.
On the following afternoon he called by appointment on Thorndyke, who, having admitted him, closed the “oak” and connected the bell with the laboratory upstairs where his assistant, Polton, was at work.
“So,” he said, “our fish has risen to the tin minnow, as I gather from your note.”
“Yes. You have had better luck than I expected.”
“Or than I deserved, you might have added if you had been less polite. Well, I don’t know that I should agree. I consider it bad practice to treat an improbability as an impossibility. But what does he say?”
“All that we could wish—and perhaps a little more. That is the only difficulty. He makes things a little too easy for us; at least that is my feeling. But you had better see the letter.”
He took it from his wallet and passed it to Thorndyke, who glanced at the post-mark, and, when he had taken out the letter, looked quickly into the interior of the envelope.
“Wivenhoe,” he remarked. “Some distance from Woodbridge, but in the same district.” He read carefully through the text, noting at the same time the peculiarities that he had observed in the former letter. In this case, too, the post-marks had been made when the envelope was empty; a curious oversight on the part of Varney, in view of the care and ingenuity otherwise displayed. Indeed, as he read through the letter, Thorndyke’s opinion of that cunning artificer rose considerably. It was a most skilful and tactful production. It did, certainly, make things almost suspiciously easy, but then that was its function. The whole case for the petition rested on it. But the brutal attitude of the imaginary truant was admirably rendered, and, so far as he could judge, the personality of the missing man convincingly represented.