"That's the very idea that just occurred to me," Miss Ladd declared as
she fitted "no" and "difference" together and then tried to find a
connecting edge on the pieces held by her neighbor to the left.

Fortunately the letter had been written on only one side of a large
sheet of paper, so that they could be pasted in correlative positions
on another sheet provided for the purpose.

Finally the patchwork was completed, in so far as the material at hand
made completeness possible. A few of the bits of torn paper were
missing, so that a word was wanting here and there in the text, but
apparently the idea and purpose of the writer did not suffer from
these vacancies. The letter as read at last by Mr. Stanlock was as
follows:

"Dear ...r

"You have failed to do what I ... you to do. I told you that it was
... dangerous to bring the girls here. The letter of warning to Miss
Stan ... did no good.... I want to warn you again and ... ... last time.
Get your friends out of Hollyhill as soon as possible. I won't be
responsible for what occurs. It makes no difference if you have given
up your original purpose. Some of the men are so worked up that they
are liable to do almost anything. If you can't get the rest out of
town go yourself, or you may get hurt.

"D...."

"Ah, ha!" exclaimed the short, heavy and loquacious detective, "That