In a few minutes she returned with a waste paper basket in her hands.

"Helen was sharing my room with me," she said. "A letter has been torn
up and thrown in the basket. As I didn't do it, it must be Helen's."

"This begins to look like something," the tall man said with a nod of
approval, picking up several bits of paper from the basket. "She's
torn it up in pretty small pieces, but if we all get busy we ought to
be able to put them together in a short time."

"Let's go out to the dining room table," Mrs. Stanlock proposed,
leading the way as she spoke.

In a few moments all were seated around the large fumed oak table from
which the spread had been removed as the hard wood surface was much
better for the task of piecing the letter together.

It was, indeed, a tedious task, but with so many working together
progress was fairly rapid. Within fifteen minutes half a dozen
sentence sections of several words each had been joined in their
phrase order. These were soon followed by three or four more and
presently one of the girls found a connecting link between two
sections thus forming a complete sentence. Imagine the thrill that
went through everyone as Mr. Stanlock read the following:

"Get your friends out of Hollyhill as soon as possible."

"I bet this letter was written by the same person who wrote the
skull-and-cross-bones letter to me," Marion ventured confidently.