“Are you quite decided not to assist me?” another letter ran. It was likewise type-written, and from the same source. “Recollect you did so once, and were well paid for it. You had enough to keep you in luxury for years had you not so foolishly frittered it away on your so-called friends. Any of the latter would give you away to the police to-morrow for a five-pound note. This, however, is my last appeal to you. If you help me I shall give you one hundred pounds, which is not bad payment for an hour’s work. If you do not, then you will not hear from me again.—Z.”
“Seems a bit brief, and to the point,” was the elder constable’s remark. “I wonder what is the affair mentioned by this mysterious correspondent? Evidently the fellow intended to bring off a robbery, or something, and Lane refused to give his aid.”
“Apparently so,” replied Ambler, fingering the last letter remaining in his hand. “But this communication is even of greater interest,” he added, turning to me and showing me writing in a well-known hand.
“I know that writing!” I cried. “Why—that letter is from poor Mrs. Courtenay!”
“It is,” he said, quietly. “Did I not tell you that we were on the eve of a discovery, and that the dead man lying there could have told us the truth?”
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE POLICE ARE AT FAULT.
Ambler Jevons read the letter, then handed it to me without comment.