I have had an interview with our friend. He was well, and sends you the following message which I have taken down word for word:—‘Please be in Lille by September twenty-fourth. Do you remember my little contribution to your Toronto flat-warming party years ago? Go to that street. The number of the street you want is the age you were that birthday when we all got upset in the river. Go at midnight. Secrecy is vital, for the house may be watched. On the third floor ring the bell. Give no name, but ask for M. Meunier. He knows why I cannot come, and has instructions, left with him for just such an emergency when Rob died. In them I stated that in the event of my death you are my sole legatee, and that if I am incapacitated or prevented in any way from being present in the house at Lille on September 24th, you have full power to sign any documents for me. I enclosed your photo and a sample of your signature. He agreed to accept you as my proxy. For your further identification I wrote a password in the letter. It is the name we three gave our island at Four Winds, and he is to reply with the name of the rock on it. You can sign any papers M. Meunier hands you without reading them; there will probably be only two. M. Meunier will then give you a slip of paper on which he will have written “Yes” or “No.” Enclose this in a letter, but send me (Meukes) a wire to say which word has been handed you. If all goes as I hope, I may soon be able to clear myself of at least one of the charges hanging over me. If you are detained, wire Meunier at the address and sign yourself “Minuit.”’ There, Miss West, is the message he sends you. He is still as obstinately silent on what interests us as ever, but I do not wonder that you are fond of him. He has a way with him. Will you allow me to wish you good luck in your errand? I shall be glad to have a wire from you to say that this is received and burned. Very truly yours, Mortimer Meukes.” Christine read the note very carefully. Entered a few notes in her shopping diary under the heading of last January, and as though they concerned dress items, and burned the letter in the shop woman's stove before she turned back towards the town itself and the villa. To-day was the eighteenth. Her visit would be up on the twentieth. She decided to spend the days between its end and the twenty-third at Avignon, among antiquities which would well explain any lingering should eyes be on her. She would have liked to go direct to Lille, but in a town she did not know she doubted her ability to remain unnoticed for so long.