Sturt laid his own letter from Doctor Fraser on the desk within the superintendent’s reach.
“My letter’s signed,” he observed, and began to read the anonymous document.
Croisette picked up the doctor’s letter and leaned back in his chair.
The superintendent was an alert-eyed French Canadian who had won his position in the Mounted Police by sheer merit. He was at once a practical officer and an organizer. But like most men of sheer capacity in the Mounted Police he preferred the activities and dangers of the trail to the work of the office. Nevertheless, he was a glutton for work wherever he found it. And he had certainly raised Calford into one of the most efficient centres of police work.
He was still under forty, with jet-black hair and a pair of keen, stone-gray eyes which peered from between thick, black lashes. And if it were possible for the mind of his staunch sergeant-major to set anything human on a pedestal of admiration, it would certainly have been Fram Croisette.
Croisette was the first to finish his reading. He raised his searching eyes above the top of the letter and studied the rugged face of his henchman with its steadily masticating jaws.
“Well?” he inquired presently, when Sturt passed the dirty sheet of paper back across the desk.
“Best set Sergeant Fyles to work on it, right away, sir.” The sergeant-major turned his tobacco over to the other cheek. “There’s more to this than I got from Doc Fraser. Fraser states his facts without unnecessary comment. This guy, whoever he is, knows more than he tells. And he looks to have as much use for the police as a bunch of rattlesnakes. Sinclair’s been—done up.”
“Ye-es. You’ve warned Fyles already, I take it?”
“I told him to come right over, sir. He’s here right now. I saw him pass the window.”