Sainsbury took them and glanced at the addresses. 

"Had we not better examine them?" he suggested; and, Sir Houston consenting, he tore them open one after the other and quickly read their contents. All three, however, were professional letters to patients. 

Next they turned their attention to the waste-paper basket. In it were a number of letters which Jerrold had torn up and cast away. Thomasson having gone to the telephone to inform the police of the tragic affair, the pair busied themselves in piecing together the various missives and reading them. 

All were without interest--letters such as a busy doctor would receive every day. Suddenly, however, Sainsbury spread out before him some crumpled pieces of cartridge-paper which proved to be the fragments of a large strong envelope which had been torn up hurriedly and discarded. 

There were words on the envelope in Jerrold's neat handwriting, and in ink which was still blue in its freshness. As Sainsbury put them together he read, to his astonishment: "Private. For my friend Mr John Sainsbury, of Heath Street, Hampstead. Not to be opened until one year after my death." 

Sir Houston, attracted by the cry of surprise which escaped Sainsbury's lips, looked over his shoulder and read the words. 

"Ah!" he sighed. "Suicide! I thought he would leave something!"

CHAPTER FIVE. CERTAIN CURIOUS FACTS.

Both men searched eagerly through the drawers of the writing-table to see if the dead man had left another envelope addressed to his friend. Two of the drawers were locked, but these they opened with the key which they found upon poor Jerrold's watch-chain which he was wearing. Some private papers, accounts and ledgers, were in the drawers, but the envelope of which they were in search they failed to discover.It seemed evident that Jerome Jerrold had written the envelope in which he had enclosed a letter, but, on reflection, he had torn it up. Though the crumpled fragments of the envelope were there, yet the letter--whatever it might have been--was missing. And their careful examination of the waste-paper basket revealed nothing, whereupon Sir Houston Bird remarked--"He may, of course, have changed his mind, and burned it, after all!"

"Perhaps he did," Jack agreed. "But I wonder what could have been the message he wished to give me a year after his death? Why not now?"

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