Ludlow gave a sudden sneeze, a whooping big sneeze, which must have disturbed the cards on the table. “I beg—” he said, and sneezed again.
My face being turned toward Maryvale, and Ludlow’s back being toward me, I had no more than an imperfect glimpse out of the tail of my eye at what happened next. Our noble friend drew his handkerchief out of his breast-pocket with a bit of a flourish, and something white and smaller came out along with it. At that precise instant Ludlow was preoccupied with a third sneeze which took him unawares and made his plumed head bob down to the green board. There was consternation at his table, amusement at the other, but I was the only one who saw the object fly off to the left, poise for the cleaving of an instant in flight, and glide and swoop gracefully down to the floor beside the long-case clock in the corner. There it lay, a slightly crumpled slip of notepaper, scrawled upon.
I gave some small exclamation, crossed in front of Maryvale, picked up the morsel. It was certainly not my intention to scrutinize the writing, but it was impossible in the act of recovery not to see some words. All that made the least imprint in my consciousness were the two concluding lines:
“. . . you leave it in the mail—you know where; I’ll come and get it.”
Not even the signature gave me any impression; but it, I must confess, looked like an intentional enigma.
A step or two across the floor would have taken me and the slip to the discomposed Ludlow, but in my way was a large reddish hand, attached to a long arm, and the arm hung on the shoulder of an Irishman whose naturally red face was filling with unaccustomed blood.
“Mine, sir,” said the bridegroom-to-be.
I shook my head. “No, Mr. Cosgrove, you must be mistaken. I saw—”
“No doubt. Mine, I said.”
“But I saw it come out of the pocket of Lord Ludlow.”