Kennedy was scrutinising 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.

Kennedy did not tell the Willards of the new letter. The strain