“Set your mind at rest,” interrupted Loveday; “I have done all I wished to do within your walls, and the remainder of my investigation can be carried on just as well at Lynch Court or at my own private rooms.”
“Done all you wished to do!” echoed Mr. Hawke in amazement; “why, you’ve not been an hour in the house, and do you mean to tell me you’ve found out anything about the necklace or the daggers?”
“Don’t ask me any questions just yet; I want you to answer one or two instead. Now, can you tell me anything about any letters Miss Monroe may have written or received since she has been in your house?”
“Yes, certainly, Sir George wrote to me very strongly about her correspondence, and begged me to keep a sharp eye on it, so as to nip in the bud any attempt to communicate with Danvers. So far, however, she does not appear to have made any such attempt. She is frankness itself over her correspondence. Every letter that has come addressed to her, she has shown either to me or to my wife, and they have one and all been letters from old friends of her father’s, wishing to make her acquaintance now that she is in England. With regard to letter-writing, I am sorry to say she has a marked and most peculiar objection to it. Every one of the letters she has received, my wife tells, me, remain unanswered still. She has never once been seen, since she came to the house, with a pen in her hand. And if she wrote on the sly, I don’t know how she would get her letters posted—she never goes outside the door by herself, and she would have no opportunity of giving them to any of the servants to post except Mrs. Hawke’s maid, and she is beyond suspicion in such a matter. She has been well cautioned, and, in addition, is not the sort of person who would assist a young lady in carrying on a clandestine correspondence.”
“I should imagine not! I suppose Miss Monroe has been present at the breakfast table each time that you have received your daggers through the post—you told me, I think, that they had come by the first post in the morning?”
“Yes; Miss Monroe is very punctual at meals, and has been present each time. Naturally, when I received such unpleasant missives, I made some sort of exclamation and then handed the thing round the table for inspection, and Miss Monroe was very much concerned to know who my secret enemy could be.”
“No doubt. Now, Mr. Hawke, I have a very special request to make to you, and I hope you will be most exact in carrying it out.”
“You may rely upon my doing so to the very letter.”
“Thank you. If, then, you should receive by post to-morrow morning one of those big envelopes you already know the look of, and find that it contains a sketch of three, not two, drawn daggers—”
“Good gracious! what makes you think such a thing likely?” exclaimed Mr. Hawke, greatly disturbed. “Why am I to be persecuted in this way? Am I to take it for granted that I am a doomed man?”
He began to pace the room in a state of great excitement.
“I don’t think I would if I were you,” answered Loveday calmly. “Pray let me finish. I want you to open the big envelope that may come to you by post to-morrow morning just you have opened the others—in full view of your family at the breakfast-table—and to hand round the sketch it may contain for inspection to your wife, your nephew and to Miss Monroe. Now, will you promise me to do this?”
“Oh, certainly; I should most likely have done so without any promising. But—but—I’m sure you’ll understand that I feel myself to be in a peculiarly uncomfortable position, and I shall feel so very much obliged to you if you’ll tell me—that is if you’ll enter a little more fully into an explanation.”