her brother--she _would_ show it to me."

"Who was it from? and what did it say?"

"It was from the doctor--he always writes to her. I don't care two
straws about her brother, and I don't remember much of the letter,
except that it was a short one. The fellow was much better; and if the
doctor didn't write again, she might take it for granted that he was
getting well. That was the substance of it."

"Did you notice where she put the letter when you gave it her back
again?"

"Yes. She put it in the drawer where she keeps her account-books."

"Can you get at that drawer?"

"Of course I can. I have got a duplicate key--I always insist on a
duplicate key of the place where she keeps her account books. I never
allow the account-books to be locked up from my inspection: it's a rule
of the house."

"Be so good as to get that letter to-day, Mr. Vanstone, without your
housekeeper's knowledge, and add to the favor by letting me have it here
privately for an hour or two."

"What do you want it for?"

"I have some more questions to ask before I tell you. Have you any
intimate friend at Zurich whom you could trust to help you in playing a
trick on Mrs. Lecount?"

"What sort of help do you mean?" asked Noel Vanstone.

"Suppose," said the captain, "you were to send a letter addressed to
Mrs. Lecount at Aldborough, inclosed in another letter addressed to one
of your friends abroad? And suppose you were to instruct that friend
to help a harmless practical joke by posting Mrs. Lecount's letter at
Zurich? Do you know any one who could be trusted to do that?"

"I know two people who could be trusted!" cried Noel Vanstone. "Both
ladies--both spinsters--both bitter enemies of Lecount's. But what is
your drift, Mr. Bygrave? Though I am not usually wanting in penetration,
I don't altogether see your drift."

"You shall see it directly, Mr. Vanstone."

With those words he rose, withdrew to his desk in the corner of the
room, and wrote a few lines on a sheet of note-paper. After first
reading them carefully to himself, he beckoned to Noel Vanstone to come
and read them too.

"A few minutes since," said the captain, pointing complacently to his
own composition with the feather end of his pen, "I had the honor of
suggesting a pious fraud on Mrs. Lecount. There it is!"

He resigned his chair at the writing-table to his visitor. Noel Vanstone
sat down, and read these lines:

"MY DEAR MADAM--Since I last wrote, I deeply regret