'Divorce, I expect,' the lad went on, as Captain Hampton took a seat on the only chair in the dark little office. 'I allus notice that the first time they comes they usually goes on like that. After a time or two they takes it more business-like. They comes in brisk, and says, "Is Mr. Slippen in?" just the same as if they was asking for a cup of tea. When they goes out sometimes they look sour, and I knows then that he,' and he jerked his thumb towards the inner office, 'hasn't any news to tell 'em; sometimes they goes out looking red in the face and in a regular paddy, and you can see by the way they grips their umbrellas they would like to give it to some one.' 'You must find it dull sitting here all day. I suppose you haven't much writing to do?' 'I doesn't sit here much. I am mostly about. There ain't many as comes here of a day, and he can hear the knocker. Those as does come calls mostly in the morning, from ten to eleven. There, she is a-moving.' The inner door opened, and a stout woman came out looking flushed and angry; the boy slid off his stool and opened the door for her, and then took Captain Hampton's card in. A moment later Mr. Slippen himself appeared at the door. 'Will you walk in, Captain Hampton? I am sorry to have kept you waiting. I rather expected,' he said, as he closed the door behind him, 'that I should have a call, either from Mr. Danvers or some one from him, when I saw that paragraph in the "Liar." I made sure it was the case he was speaking to me about, and I said to myself, "They are safe to be doing something now."' 'Yes, it is that case that I come about. I am here on the part of Mr. Hawtrey, the father of the young lady. I am an intimate friend of the family. Mr. Danvers gave you the heads of the matter.' The detective nodded; he was a rather short, slightly-built man, with hair cut very short and standing up aggressively; his eyes were widely opened, with a sharp, quick movement as they glanced from one point to another, but the general expression of the face was pleasant and good-tempered. 'He told you my opinion so far as I could form it from the very slight data he gave me?' 'Yes, you thought at first that the writer of the threats really had possession of compromising letters; but upon hearing that she was engaged you thought it likely that the letters might be the work of some aggrieved or disappointed woman.' 'That is it, sir.' 'So far as we can see,' Captain Hampton went on, 'neither view was correct; certainly the first was not. We have, as we think, laid our fingers on the writer, who is a man who believes himself to have a personal grievance against Mr. Hawtrey himself.' He then related the whole story. 'He may be the man,' Mr. Slippen said, when he had finished. 'At any rate there is something to go on, which there was not before. There will be no great difficulty in laying one's hand on him, but at present we have not a shred of real evidence--nothing that a magistrate would listen to.'