Mr Sandys had asked Roddy to fit for him a wireless transmitting set so that he could speak to his office by wireless telephone. This he had done, though not without considerable difficulties with the authorities.
It was eleven o’clock before the young man returned to the silent, empty house, and on entering his dead father’s study he saw that upon the blotting-pad old Mrs Bentley had placed several letters.
He took them up thoughtfully.
“Poor old dad!” he exclaimed aloud. “These have been written by people who still believe him to be alive!”
He turned them over in his hand, and then began to open them. The first was a polite intimation from a moneylender, who expressed himself anxious to lend the reverend gentleman a loan of anything from two pounds to two thousand pounds at practically a nominal interest. The next was from a second-hand bookseller of whom his father frequently dealt, the third a bill, and the fourth was thin and bore a foreign stamp, the address being written in a small, angular hand.
He opened it with some curiosity, and read as follows:
“Dear Mr Homfray,—Though we have not met for nearly two years, you will probably recollect me. I have of late been very ill, and in a most mysterious manner. I am, however, fast recovering, and am at last able to write to you—having recollected only yesterday your name and address.
“I have been suffering from blindness and a peculiar loss of memory; indeed, so much that I could not, until yesterday, tell people my own name. Here I am known as Betty Grayson, and I am living with some good, honest Normandy folk called Nicole.
“I need not recall the tragedy which befell my fiancé, Mr Willard, but it is in that connexion that I wish to see you—and with all urgency, for your interests in the affair coincide with my own. I feel that I dare not tell you more in this letter than to say that I feel grave danger threatening, and I make an appeal to you to come here and see me, so that we may act together in clearing up the mystery and bringing those guilty to the justice they deserve.
“The situation has assumed the greatest urgency for action, so will you, on receipt of this letter, telegraph to me: chez Madame Nicole, 104, Rue des Chanoines, Bayeux, France, and tell me that you will come at once to see me. I would come to you, but as an invalid I am in the charge of those who are doing their best to ensure my rapid recovery. You are a clergyman, and I rely upon your kind and generous aid.—Yours very sincerely,
“Edna Manners.”
“Edna Manners?” gasped Roddy when he saw the signature. “Can she possibly be the girl whom I saw dead in Welling Wood?”