"So he gave me to understand. Mr Parsloe sent me to see him. I did see him, in private. He gave me a note, which he was extremely anxious that I should give into your own hands. I was just coming on to Exham Park on the off-chance of finding you in. Perhaps you won't mind my giving it to you now?"
"By all means. Why not?"
He had taken out of a leather case a piece of folded paper.
"You see it is rather a rough-and-ready affair, but I should like to give you my assurance that I have no idea what it contains."
"I don't suppose it would matter much if you did. Jim Baker is hardly likely to have a communication of a private nature to make to me."
"As to that I know nothing. I can only say that Baker was not satisfied till I had sworn that I would not attempt to even so much as peep at the contents of his note, or let it go out of my hands until it reached yours."
"Really?"
"Really! I never saw a man more desperately in earnest on a point of the kind."
"Jim Baker is a character."
"He certainly is. You will see that the note is written on a piece of rough paper. Where he got it from I don't know, and was careful not to ask; but it looks suspiciously like a fly-leaf which had been torn out of a book. You are possibly aware that in prison, in the ordinary way, they are allowed neither paper, pen nor ink. I fancy you'll find that this is written with a pencil. When I first saw it it had been simply folded, and one end slipped into the other. I happened to have some sealing-wax in my pocket. Baker insisted on my sealing it, in his presence, in three places, as you perceive, so that it was impossible to get at the contents without breaking the seals. I say all this because Baker himself was emphatically of opinion that this note contained matter of an extremely confidential nature, to which I should like you clearly to understand that I have had no sort of access. I may add another fact, of which you are also possibly aware, and that is that the whole transaction was irregular. He had no right to give me the note, and I had no right to convey it out of the prison; but he did the one, and I did the other, and here it is."