And then I was walking down the street with Megan and Elsie Holland passed. She was dressed as a bride, and people were murmuring:

“She’s going to marry Dr. Griffith at last. Of course they’ve been engaged secretly for years….”

There we were, in the church, and Dane Calthrop was reading the service in Latin.

And in the middle of it Mrs. Dane Calthrop jumped up and cried energetically:

“It’s got to be stopped, I tell you. It’s got to be stopped!”

For a minute or two I didn’t know whether I was asleep or awake. Then my brain cleared, and I realized I was in the drawing room of Little Furze and that Mrs. Dane Calthrop had just come through the window and was standing in front of me saying with nervous violence:

“It has got to be stopped, I tell you.”

I jumped up. I said: “I beg your pardon. I’m afraid I was asleep. What did you say?”

Mrs. Dane Calthrop beat one fist fiercely on the palm of her other hand.

“It’s got to be stopped. These letters! Murder! You can’t go on having poor innocent children like Agnes Woddell killed!”

“You’re quite right,” I said. “But how do you propose to set about it?”

Mrs. Dane Calthrop said:

“We’ve got to do something!”

I smiled, perhaps in rather a superior fashion.

“And what do you suggest that we should do?”

“Get the whole thing cleared up! I said this wasn’t a wicked place. I was wrong. It is.”

I felt annoyed. I said, not too politely:

“Yes, my dear woman, but what are you going to do?”

Mrs. Dane Calthrop said: “Put a stop to it all, of course.”

“The police are doing their best.”

“If Agnes could be killed yesterday, their best isn’t good enough.”

“So you know better than they do?”

“Not at all. I don’t know anything at all. That’s why I’m going to call in an expert.”

I shook my head.

“You can’t do that. Scotland Yard will only take over on a demand from the chief constable of the county. Actually they have sent Graves.”

“I don’t mean that kind of an expert. I don’t mean someone who knows about anonymous letters or even about murder. I mean someone who knows people. Don’t you see? We want someone who knows a great deal about wickedness!”

It was a queer point of view. But it was, somehow, stimulating.

Before I could say anything more, Mrs. Dane Calthrop nodded her head at me and said in a quick, confident tone:

“I’m going to see about it right away.”

And she went out of the window again.

Chapter Ten

Ten

I

The next week, I think, was one of the queerest times I have ever passed through. It had an odd dream quality. Nothing seemed real.