from her pocket a small, soiled and frayed playing-card, an ace of hearts, upon which certain cabalistic capitals had been written in three columns. In order that you shall properly understand the arrangement and position of the letters, it will perhaps be as well if I here reproduce it:—

“That’s curious!” I remarked, turning it over anxiously in my hand. “Have you tried to discover what meaning the words convey?”

“Yes; but it’s some cipher or other, I think. You will notice that the two upper columns commence with ‘A,’ and the lower column ends with the same letter. The card is the ace of hearts, and in all those points I detect some hidden meaning.”

“No doubt,” I said. “But was there an appearance of it being carefully preserved?”

“Yes, it was sealed in a linen-lined envelope to itself, and marked in my father’s handwriting, ‘Burton Blair—private.’ I wonder what it means?”

“Ah! I wonder,” I exclaimed, pondering deeply, and still gazing upon the three columns of fourteen letters. I tried to decipher it by the usual known methods of the easy cipher, but could make nothing intelligible of it. There were some hidden words there, and being utterly unintelligible, they caused me considerable thought. Why Blair had preserved that card in such secrecy was, to say the least, a mystery. In it I suspected there was some hidden clue to his secret, but of its nature I could not even guess.

When we had discussed it for a long time, arriving at no satisfactory conclusion, I suggested that she should go abroad with Mrs Percival for a few weeks so as to change her surroundings and endeavour to forget her sudden bereavement, but she only shook her head, murmuring—

“No, I prefer to remain here. The loss of my poor father would be the same to me abroad as it is here.”

“But you must endeavour to forget,” I urged with deep sympathy. “We are doing our utmost to solve the mystery surrounding your father’s actions, and the means by which he came by his death. To-night, indeed, I am leaving for Italy in order to make secret inquiries regarding this person who is appointed your secretary.”

“Ah, yes,” she sighed. “I wonder who he is? I wonder what motive my father could possibly have in placing my affairs in the hands of a stranger?”

“He is probably an old friend of your father’s,” I suggested.

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