Whether the letter is true,
or whether the letter is false--am I not reading your own wiser thoughts
now, Mr. Noel?--you know better than to put your enemies on their guard
by employing the police in this matter too soon. I quite agree with
you--no police just yet. You will allow this anonymous man, or anonymous
woman, to suppose you are easily frightened; you will lay a trap for the
information in return for the trap laid for your money; you will answer
the letter, and see what comes of the answer; and you will only pay the
expense of employing the police when you know the expense is necessary.
I agree with you again--no expense, if we can help it. In every
particular, Mr. Noel, my mind and your mind in this matter are one."
"It strikes you in that light, Lecount--does it?" said Noel Vanstone. "I
think so myself; I certainly think so. I won't pay the police a farthing
if I can possibly help it." He took up the letter again, and became
fretfully perplexed over a second reading of it. "But the man wants
money!" he broke out, impatiently. "You seem to forget, Lecount, that
the man wants money."
"Money which you offer him, sir," rejoined Mrs. Lecount; "but--as your
thoughts have already anticipated--money which you don't give him.
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