It contained a letter from Baxter to Gregg and, as Fayre read it, he felt himself grow hot with shame at the part he was playing. If it had not been for Leslie’s danger and the unworthy part he believed Gregg to be playing in this game of life and death, he would have bundled the letters back into the drawer and locked it, for the letter was that of a broken man to a friend from whom he had no reservations. It seemed to have been written more in grief than in anger and in it Baxter said that he had traced his wife to Brighton, where she had been staying openly with Captain Draycott and that he proposed to do his utmost to persuade her to return to him. It was evidently in answer to a letter from Gregg, urging him to take action. This, he declared, he did not intend to do unless he were persuaded that the step would insure his wife’s happiness and then only on the undertaking from Draycott that, in the event of a divorce, he would marry her. It was an honest, straightforward letter, pathetic in its complete selflessness. On the envelope Gregg had scribbled a pencilled note: “_L. has seen her in Paris several times with a man whose name he was unable to discover. Comparing dates I have ascertained that Draycott was in Egypt at the time. L., knowing I was interested, took the trouble to trace them to their hotel, but is convinced that they were staying there under an assumed name. Useful evidence, if she interferes with the boy and I shall not hesitate to use it. Draycott will not stand for that sort of thing!_” This note had evidently been made after her divorce and subsequent marriage to Captain Draycott and suggested that, for some reason, Gregg was wishful to retain a hold over her and proposed to use this hold if necessary. It looked as if Gregg’s power to harm her had ceased with Draycott’s death, in which case he could hardly have used his knowledge to force her to meet him at the farm. At the same time, Fayre realized that he had at last stumbled on a possible motive for an assignation. Supposing that Gregg’s power over her still held and that, for some reason, he had decided to put on the screw. Given the man’s bitterness against her, combined with his obviously uneven temper, it was not outside the bounds of possibility that he had been exasperated beyond endurance at her refusal to accede to his demands and had shot her in a moment of blind rage. Fayre, knowing Gregg, could not bring himself to believe that the thing was premeditated. He did, on the other hand, consider him perfectly capable of using the revolver as a threat, probably with no intention of firing it. Fayre slipped the letter back under the string before extracting the one underneath it and was glad he had done so for, while he was in the very act, his ear caught the sound of an approaching motor. Quick as lightning he threw the packet back into the drawer, closed and locked it and was back in the surgery before Gregg was out of his car.