"Very well, I leave it to you. Every one seems to forget that it is I who suffer most." The baronet stood up and dejectedly gazed into the fire. "I, at least, can feel for you, Dyke," said Bruce sympatherically, "but you must admit that things cannot be allowed to remain in their present whirlpool." "So be it. Let them go on to their bitter end. If my wife was tired of my society she might at least have got rid of me in an easier manner." With this trite reflection Sir Charles quitted his friend's house. Bruce sat motionless for a long time. Then, as his mind became calmer, he lit a cigar, took out the doubly mysterious letter, and examined it in every possible way, critically and microscopically. There could be no doubt that it was a genuine production. The condition of the ink bore out the correctness of the date, and the fact that the note paper and envelope were not of Continental style was not very material. It did not appear to have been enclosed in another envelope, as the writer implied, for the purpose of being re-posted in London. Rather did the slightly frayed edges give rise to the assumption that it had been carried in some one's pocket before postage. But this theory was vague and undemonstrable. The handwriting was Lady Dyke's; the style, allowing for the strange conditions under which it was written, was hers; yet Bruce did not believe in it. Nothing could shake his faith in the one solid, concrete certainty that stood out from a maze of contradictions and mystery--Lady Dyke was dead, and buried in a pauper's grave at Putney. At last, wearied with thought and theorizing, he went to bed; but Smith sat up late to regale his partner with the full, true, and particular narrative of the "lydy a-cryin' on her knees, and the strange gent lookin' as though he would like to murder Mr. White." CHAPTER XXIV THE HANDWRITING Like most men, Claude took a different view of events in the morning to that which he entertained over night. Yesterday, the surprises of the hour were concrete embodiments, each distinct and emphatic. To-day they were merged in the general mass of contradictory details that made up this most bewildering inquiry. That matters could not be allowed to rest in their present state was clear; that they would, in the natural course of things, reveal themselves more definitely, even if unaided, was also patent. Mrs. Hillmer's partial admissions, her brother's evident knowledge of some salient features of the puzzle, that utterly strange letter in the admitted handwriting of Lady Dyke herself, and bearing the prosaic testimony of dates stamped by the Post-office--these sensational elements, when brought into juxtaposition, could not avoid reaction into clearer phases. Long experience in criminal investigation told him that, under certain circumstances, the best course of all was one of inactivity.