"That's what puzzles me," remarked Leland. "Do you suppose some one
has broken in and substituted this Lytton letter for the Thurston
letter?"

Kennedy was scrutinizing the letter, saying nothing. "I may keep it?"
he asked at length. Leland was quite willing and even undertook to
obtain some specimens of the writing of Vera Lytton. With these and
the letter Kennedy was working far into the night and long after I had
passed into a land troubled with many wild dreams of deadly poisons
and secret intrigues of artists.

The next morning a message from our old friend First Deputy O'Connor
in New York told briefly of locating the rooms of an artist named
Thurston in one of the co-operative studio apartments. Thurston
himself had not been there for several days and was reported to have
gone to Maine to sketch. He had had a number of debts, but before he
left they had all been paid--strange to say, by a notorious firm of
shyster lawyers, Kerr & Kimmel. Kennedy wired back to find out the
facts from Kerr & Kimmel and to locate Thurston at any cost.

Even the discovery of the new letter did not shake the wonderful
self-possession of Dr. Dixon. He denied ever having received it and
repeated his story of a letter from Thurston to which he had replied
by sending an answer, care of Mrs. Boncour, as requested. He insisted
that the engagement between Miss Lytton and himself had been broken
before the announcement of his engagement with Miss Willard. As for
Thurston, he said the man was little more than a name to him. He had
known perfectly all the circumstances of the divorce, but had had no
dealings with Thurston and no fear of him. Again and again he denied
ever receiving the letter from Vera Lytton.