that you are keeping back
something from me. You say that the face of this man Storm "recalls
nothing and nobody" to you. I must accept your word. Yet I got the
impression that at least he reminded you of some one. I was watching
your face at the moment you met.

Since you left me, refusing to interest yourself further in the affair,
I have thought of it unceasingly. A sudden and extremely interesting
idea has come into my head. I cannot afford to waste it, though without
the aid of a competent detective like yourself I may not be able to put
it to good use. If you will not change your mind and take up the matter
again on new lines, I shall be glad if you can send me a smart man from
your agency, a person in whose discretion as well as intelligence you
have implicit confidence.

Kindly wire me to the post-office, Ogunquit, Me.

Yours truly,

E. CASPIAN.

(Telegram from Richard Moyle to Edward Caspian, Post-office, Ogunquit,
Maine):

_Sorry have no one can recommend for job mentioned. Nothing in it.
Advise you leave it alone._

(Richard Moyle to Peter Storm, Ogunquit, Maine. Try all hotels):

_Excuse liberty, but look out for E. C. May make you trouble._

(Peter Storm to Richard Moyle, at New York):

_Many thanks. Am looking out._

_P. S._

XXV

MOLLY WINSTON TO MERCEDES LANE

_Wenham._

MERCEDES DEAR:

My first thought as I waked yesterday morning was Aunt Mary. I thought
of her in my bath--a cold porcelain bath, rapidly filling up with hot
water, and giving me rather the feeling of eating an ice with hot
chocolate sauce. I thought of Aunt M. with breakfast and choked her down
with my coffee. When we had left our happy home--the Boston hotel--the
"chug chug" of our motor sang the song which the West Point cadets have
made up for "church call."

_"You've got to go, whether you want to or not!
You've got to go, so you'd better turn out!
Oh, h--ades!"_

But after a while the road was so pretty that I succeeded in forgetting
her now and then, as you might forget you were on the way to the
dentist's when you passed splendid jewellery and hat shops.

We were also on the way to Marblehead and Salem; Aunt Mary wasn't till
afterward.

Marblehead, with all its romance of anci