"It looks like it--and written with a shaky pen." "My dear child, one's hand would shake at such a moment as that." "Mabel, where did you get this?" "It was brought to me in Cane and Wilson's." "Who brought it?" "Who brought it? Why, the man you sent." "The man I sent?" A light burst upon the Duke's brain. He fell back a pace. "It's the decoy!" Her Grace echoed the words: "The decoy?" "The scoundrel! To set a trap with such a bait! My poor, innocent darling, did you think it came from me? Tell me, Mabel, where did he cut off your hair?" "Cut off my hair?" Her Grace put her hand up to her head as if to make sure that her hair was there. "Where did he take you to?" "He took me to Draper's Buildings." "Draper's Buildings?" "I have never been in the City before, but he told me it was Draper's Buildings. Isn't that near the Stock Exchange?" "Near the Stock Exchange?" It seemed rather a curious place to which to take a kidnapped victim. The man's audacity! "He told me that you were coming out of the Stock Exchange when a van knocked you over. He said that he thought it was a Pickford's van--was it a Pickford's van?" "No, it was not a Pickford's van. Mabel, were you in Draper's Buildings when you wrote that letter?" "Wrote what letter?" "Have you forgotten it already? I do not believe that there is a word in it which will not be branded on my brain until I die." "Hereward! What do you mean?" "Surely you cannot have written me such a letter as that, and then have forgotten it already?" He handed her the letter which had arrived in the second communication. She glanced at it, askance. Then she took it with a little gasp. "Hereward, if you don't mind, I think I'll take a chair." She took a chair. "Whatever--whatever's this?" As she read the letter the varying expressions which passed across her face were, in themselves, a study in psychology. "Is it possible that you can imagine that, under any conceivable circumstances, I could have written such a letter as this?" "Mabel!" She rose to her feet, with emphasis: "Hereward, don't say that you thought this came from me!" "Not come from you?" He remembered Knowles's diplomatic reception of the epistle on its first appearance. "I suppose that you will say next that this is not a lock of your hair?" "My dear child, what bee have you got in your bonnet? This a lock of my hair! Why, it's not in the least like my hair!" Which was certainly inaccurate. As far as color was concerned it was an almost perfect match. The Duke turned to Mr. Dacre. "Ivor, I've had to go through a good deal this afternoon. If I have to go through much more, something will crack!" He touched his forehead. "I think it's my turn to take a chair." He also took a chair. Not the one which the Duchess had vacated, but one which faced it. He stretched out his legs in front of him; he thrust his hands into his trousers-pockets; he said, in a tone which was not only gloomy but absolutely gruesome: