"I have the honor to be able to say, 'Yes' to all that you have
asked, Miss Winslow," he replied. "Is there any way in which I can
be of service to you?"

I thought a smile played over his face at the thought that perhaps
she might have come to ask him to work for three clients instead
of two.

At any rate, the girl was very much excited and very much in
earnest, as she opened her handbag and drew from it a letter which
she handed to Garrick.

"I received that letter," she explained, speaking rapidly, "in the
noon mail to-day. I don't know what to make of it. It worries me
to get such a thing. What do you suppose it was sent to me for?
Who could have sent it?"

She was leaning forward artlessly on her crossed knee looking
expectantly up into Garrick's face, oblivious to everything else,
even her own enticing beauty. There was something so simple and
sincere about Violet Winslow that one felt instinctively that
nothing was too great a price to shield her from the sordid and
the evil in the world. Yet something had happened that had brought
her already into the office of a detective.

Garrick had glanced quickly at the outside of the slit envelope.
The postmark showed that it had been mailed early that morning at
the general post office and that there was slight chance of
tracing anything in that direction.