CHAPTER TWENTY.

AN EVENING'S AMUSEMENT.

Saunders met me on entering my chambers with the surprising announcement that a lady had called during my absence, and had desired to see me on pressing business.

"Did she leave a card?"

"No, sir. She hadn't a card, but she left her name. Miss Ashcombe, sir."

"Ashcombe?" I repeated. "I don't know anyone of that name," and for a few moments I tried to recollect whether I had heard of her before, when it suddenly burst upon me that on a previous occasion I had been puzzled by a letter bearing the signature "Annie Ashcombe." The note I had found in Jack's room on the night of the tragedy and which requested Bethune to meet "her ladyship" at Feltham, had been written by someone named Ashcombe!

"What kind of lady was she, Saunders?" I inquired eagerly. "Ancient?"

"About thirty-five, I think, sir. She was very excited, dark, plainly dressed in black, and wore spectacles. She seemed very disappointed when I said you had only just returned from Wadenhoe, and had gone out again. She wanted to write a note, so I asked her in and she wrote one, but afterward tore it up and told me to mention that she had called to see you on a matter of the most vital importance, and regretted you were not in."

"Did she promise to call again?"

"She said she was compelled to leave London immediately, but would try and see you on her return. When I asked if she could make an appointment for to-morrow, she replied, `I may be absent only three days, or I may be three months.'"

"Then she gave no intimation whatever of the nature of her business?"

"Not the slightest, sir. I think she's Irish, for she spoke with a slight accent."

"You say she tore up her note. Where are the pieces?" He went to the waste-paper basket, turned over its contents, and produced a handful of fragments of a sheet of my own notepaper. These I spread upon the table, and when he had left the room I eagerly set to work placing them together. But the paper had been torn into tiny pieces and it was only after long and tedious effort that I was enabled to read the words, hastily written in pencil, which as far as I could gather, were to the following effect:--

"Dear Sir.--The matter about which I have called to see you is one of the highest importance both to yourself and one of your friends. It is not policy, I think, to commit it to paper; therefore, as I am compelled to leave London at once I must, unfortunately, postpone my interview with you.

"Yours truly,--

"Annie Ashcombe."

I unlocked the little cabinet and taking therefrom the strangely-worded