r was probably an excuse--because it was not at
all a cold afternoon--he must have previously designed going out.
Inference, a letter received; and here were pieces of a letter. Now, in
the light of what I have said, look at these pieces. First, there is the
'mmy'--that I have dealt with. Then see this 'throw them ov'--clearly a
part of 'throw them over'; exactly what had probably been done with the
slippers. Then the 'poor f,' coming just on the line before, and seen, by
joining up with this other piece, might easily be a reference to 'poor
feet.' These coincidences, one on the other, went far to establish the
identity of the letter, and to confirm my previous impressions. But then
there is something else. Two other pieces evidently mean 'left him,' and
'right away,' perhaps; but there is another, containing almost all of the
words 'hate his,' with the word 'hate' underlined. Now, who writes 'hate'
with the emphasis of underscoring--who but a woman? The writing is large
and not very regular; it might easily be that of a half-educated woman.
Here was something more--Sammy had been enticed away by a woman.

"Now, I remembered that, when we went into the tap-room on Wednesday, some
of his companions were chaffing Crockett about a certain Nancy Webb, and
the chaff went home, as was plain to see. The woman, then, who could most
easily entice Sammy Crockett away was Nancy Webb. I resolved to find who
Nancy Webb was and learn more of her.

"Meantime, I took a look at the road at the end of the lane. It was damper
than the lane, being lower, and overhung by trees. There were many
wheel-tracks, but only one set that turned in the road and went back the
way it came, toward the town; and they were narrow wheels--carriage
wheels. Crockett tells me now that they drove him about for a long time
before shutting him up; probably the inconvenience of taking him straight
to the hiding-place didn't strike them when they first drove off.

"A few inquiries soon set me in the direction of the Plough and Miss Nancy
Webb. I had the curiosity to look around the place as I approached, and
there, in the garden behind the house, were Steggles and the young lady in
earnest confabulation!

"Every conjecture became a certainty. Steggles was the lover of whom
Crockett was jealous, and he had employed the girl to bring Sammy out. I
watched Steggles home, and gave you a hint to keep him there.

"But the thing that remained was to find Steggles' empl