Martin Venables.
P. S.—I write in a violent hurry. The Doctor has read some extraordinary news in the paper just in from London. It is about the missing miniature, found on a prisoner. He will leave here for London by the 7.45 train in the morning. I want this to catch the post, so cannot write more, except that the Doctor wishes me to say he will be sure to see you before he has been long in London.
M. V.
This postscript threw the little household at Rose Cottage into a great flutter at the breakfast table the next morning.
“What can it mean?” asked Howard. “Have you seen anything in the paper, uncle, to which it refers? I have not seen the paper for a week.”
“’Pon my word, I don’t know,” said Captain Arkwright. “It can’t be—yes, it may, though. Just wait a minute.”
The Captain jumped up, snatched the paper of the day before from a side-table, and began to search for a particular heading, which, of course, was not on the pages he had first opened.
“Here it is!” he cried at length. “It is headed, ‘A Fatal Chase.’”
“Let me see it,” said Howard, almost trembling with anxiety, as he ran his eye hastily over the report.
It ran on this wise: