Yours
E. DULKINGHORN
P.S. The letter is, of course, in conventional code.
P.P.S. Don’t frighten the life out of the Trevert girl, you unsympathetic brute!
Robin read the letter through to the end.
“Then Mary Trevert has this letter from Rotterdam which we have been hunting for!” he cried. “Have you seen it?”
Herr Schulz shook his head.
“Miss Trevert called here this morning,” he said, “when I was out. She gave her letter to Frau Wirth, my housekeeper, with her card and address. Frau Wirth was cleaning the plate on the front door and, a moment after Miss Trevert had gone, a fellow appeared and said he was a friend of Miss Trevert who had made a mistake and left the wrong letter. My housekeeper is well trained and wouldn’t give the letter up. But she made the fatal mistake of telling the fellow exactly what he wanted to know, and that was who the letter was addressed to. ‘The letter is addressed to Herr Schulz,’ said this excellent woman, ‘and if there’s any mistake he will find it out when he opens it.’ And with that she told him to clear out. Which, having got all he wanted, he was glad enough to do!”
“What was this chap like?” asked Robin.
The big man shrugged his shoulders.
“I can teach my servants discretion,” he replied whimsically, “but I can’t teach ’em to use their eyes. Frau Wirth could remember nothing about this fellow except that he wasn’t tall and wore a brown overcoat ...”