"You are engaged as private secretary to the Earl of Deringham, lately an admiral in the British Navy. Your duties, it is presumed, are to copy and revise papers and calculations having reference to the coast defences and navy of Great Britain. The writer is himself engaged upon a somewhat similar task, but not having had the facilities accorded to Lord Deringham, is without one or two important particulars. The service required of you is the supplying of these, and for this you are offered one thousand pounds. "As a man of honour you may possibly hesitate to at once embrace this offer. You need not! Lord Deringham's work is practically useless, for it is the work of a lunatic. You yourself, from your intimate association with him, must know that this statement is true. He will never be able to give coherent form to the mass of statistics and information which he has collected. Therefore you do him no harm in supplying these few particulars to one who will be able to make use of them. The sum you are offered is out of all proportion to their value--a few months' delay and they could easily be acquired by the writer without the expenditure of a single halfpenny. That, however, is not the point. "I am rich and I have no time to spare. Hence this offer. I take it that you are a man of common sense, and I take it for granted, therefore, that you will not hesitate to accept this offer. Your acquiescence will be assumed if you lunch at the Grand Hotel, Cromer, between one and two, on Thursday following the receipt of this letter. You will then be put in full possession of all the information necessary to the carrying out of the proposals made to you. You are well known to the writer, who will take the liberty of joining you at your table." The letter ended thus somewhat abruptly. Wolfenden, who had only glanced it through at first, now re-read it carefully. Then he handed it back to Blatherwick. "It is a very curious communication," he said thoughtfully, "a very curious communication indeed. I do not know what to think of it." Mr. Blatherwick laid down his cigar with an air of great relief. He would have liked to have thrown it away, but dared not. "It must surely be intended for a practical joke, Lord Wolfenden," he said. "Either that, or my correspondent has been ludicrously misinformed." "You do not consider, then, that my father's work is of any value at all?" Wolfenden asked. Mr. Blatherwick coughed apologetically, and watched the extinction of the cigar by his side with obvious satisfaction.