"No," replied Simmons, grimly, "but you might lend me a pair of bracelets. This bird got away from me once, some seven years ago, and I'm not taking any more chances!"
XVII
THE POISON-PEN PUZZLE
Beside the bookcase in the room which Bill Quinn likes to dignify by the name of "library"—though it's only a den, ornamented with relics of scores of cases in which members of the different government detective services have figured—hangs a frame containing four letters, each in a different handwriting.
Beyond the fact that these letters obviously refer to some secret in the lives of the persons to whom they are addressed, there is little about them that is out of the ordinary. A close observer, however, would note that in none of the four is the secret openly stated. It is only hinted at, suggested, but by that very fact it becomes more mysterious and alarming.
It was upon this that I commented one evening as I sat, discussing things in general, with Quinn.
"Yes," he agreed, "the writer of those letters was certainly a genius. As an author or as an advertising writer or in almost any other profession where a mastery of words and the ability to leave much to the imagination is a distinct asset, they would have made a big success."
"They?" I inquired. "Did more than one person write the letters?"