for her coming."

Taking an envelope from his pocket, Mr. Clifton drew forth two small
scraps of soiled and crumpled paper, one of which was the half of another
envelope presenting very nearly the following appearance:

As he pointed this out, he remarked:

"Elwood is not so common a baptismal name, that there can be any doubt
as to the person addressed."

The other scraps, also written in pencil and by the same hand, contained
but two or three disconnected words; but one of those words was
_Adelaide_.

"I spent an hour and a half in the yards adjoining the station before I
found those two bits," explained the young lawyer with a simple
earnestness not displeasing to the two seasoned men he addressed. "One
was in hiding under a stacked-up pile of outgoing freight, and the other
I picked out of a cart of stuff which had been swept up in the early
morning. I offer them in corroboration of Mr. Ranelagh's statement that
the '_Come!_' used in the partially consumed letter found in the
clubhouse chimney was addressed to Miss Carmel Cumberland and not to
Adelaide, and that the place of meeting suggested by this word was the
station platform, and not the spot since made terrible by death."

"You are acquainted with Miss Carmel Cumberland's handwriting?"

"If I am not, the town is full of people who are. I believe these words
to have been written by Carmel Cumberland."

Mr. Fox placed the pieces back in their envelope and laid the whole
carefully away.

"For a second time we are obliged to you," said he.

"You can cancel the obligation," was the quick retort, "by discovering
the identity of the man who in derby hat and a coat with a very high
collar, left the grounds of The Whispering Pines just as Mr. Ranelagh
drove into them. I have no facilities for the job, and no desire to
undertake it."

He had endeavoured to speak naturally, if not with an off-hand air; but
he failed somehow--else why the quick glance of startled inquiry which
Dr. Perry sent him from under his rather shaggy eyebrows.

"Well, we'll undertake that, too," promised the district attorney.

"I can ask no more," returned Charles Clifton, arising to depart. "The
confronting of that man with Ranelagh will cause the latter to unseal his
lips. Before you have finished with my client, you will esteem him much
more highly than you do now."

The district attorney smiled at what seemed the callow enthusiasm of a
youthful lawyer; but the coroner who kne