"
"Be so good as to get that letter to-day, Mr. Vanstone, without your
housekeeper's knowledge, and add to the favor by letting me have it here
privately for an hour or two."
"What do you want it for?"
"I have some more questions to ask before I tell you. Have you any
intimate friend at Zurich whom you could trust to help you in playing a
trick on Mrs. Lecount?"
"What sort of help do you mean?" asked Noel Vanstone.
"Suppose," said the captain, "you were to send a letter addressed to
Mrs. Lecount at Aldborough, inclosed in another letter addressed to one
of your friends abroad? And suppose you were to instruct that friend
to help a harmless practical joke by posting Mrs. Lecount's letter at
Zurich? Do you know any one who could be trusted to do that?"
"I know two people who could be trusted!" cried Noel Vanstone. "Both
ladies--both spinsters--both bitter enemies of Lecount's. But what is
your drift, Mr. Bygrave? Though I am not usually wanting in penetration,
I don't altogether see your drift."
"You shall see it directly, Mr. Vanstone."
With those words he rose, withdrew to his desk in the corner of the
room, and wrote a few lines on a sheet of note-paper.
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