“Of course, I’ll help you,” he said. “Now, tell me all about it!”
“Before ... this happened I had promised Hartley Parrish to marry him,” began the girl. “The doctors say his nerves were wrong. I don’t believe a word of it. He was full of the joy of life. He was very fond of me. He was always talking of what we should do when we were married. He never would have killed himself without some tremendously powerful motive. Even then I can’t believe it possible ...”
She made a little nervous gesture.
“After he ... did it,” she went on, “I found this letter on his desk. It came to him from Holland. I mean to see the people who wrote it and discover if they can throw any light on ... on ... the affair ...”
She had taken from her muff a letter, folded in four, written on paper of a curious dark slatey-blue colour.
“Won’t you show me the letter?”
“You promise to say nothing about it to any one?”
He nodded.
“Of course.”
Without a word the girl gave him the letter. With slow deliberation he unfolded it. The letter was typewritten and headed: “Elias van der Spyck & Co. General Importers, Rotterdam.”