The trousers were marked only by dust and a few pieces of hay. The jacket was quite heavy-a natural enough choice for a man going out to the stables in the middle of a winter night, possibly to wait a little while until someone arrived.

The question rose again: Why the stables? If Havilland wished to be private, it was easy enough to send the servants to bed and open the front door for the guest himself. Monk had a crowding sense that there was some major fact that had escaped him completely.

Runcorn was waiting, watching him.

He unrolled the jacket and laid it on the dresser. There was blood thick and dark on the left lapel and over the shoulder. It was completely dried now and stiff. A few spots had fallen on the sleeve, though not a great deal. After all, it had been a shot to the head, and Havilland must have died almost instantly.

"Look," Runcorn instructed.

Without hope of finding anything, Monk pushed his hands into the inside pocket. His fingers closed on paper, and he pulled it out. It was folded up but unmarked. An envelope. On the back a word-Tyburn-was scrawled, and some figures, and then no name and some more figures in the same grouping. He turned it over. On the front was his name, Mr. James Havilland. There was no address. It had been hand-delivered. He looked up at Runcorn.

Runcorn's eyes were bright. "That's it!" he said, excitement making his voice tremble. "That's the envelope from the note he got!" He held out his hand.

Monk passed it to him.

"Woman's writing," Runcorn said after only a second or two, disappointment so keen he could not mask it. He looked up at Monk, pain and confusion naked. "Was it an assignation after all? Who the devil shot him? A husband? Did the man in the two cabs have nothing to do with it?"

Monk was unhappy, too, but for an entirely different reason. "Jenny Argyll," he said. "If it was she who wrote, he would go out there to meet her. Don't forget Mary was in the house. Maybe he wanted to speak with Jenny without Mary knowing, or Jenny with him."

Runcorn looked around for the bell. He found it and rang it, and Cardman answered a few moments later.

Runcorn held out the envelope. "Do you know whose handwriting that is?" he asked.

Cardman looked stiff and miserable, his eyes haunted, but he did not hesitate. "Yes, sir. That is Miss Jennifer's handwriting-Mrs. Argyll, that is."