It was a sheet of delicately-made paper, pierced with a number of
little holes, infinitely varied in size, and cut with the smoothest
precision. Having secured this curious object, while the librarian's
back was turned, Dennis Howmore reflected.
A page of paper, unintelligibly perforated for some purpose unknown,
was in itself a suspicious thing. And what did suspicion suggest to the
inquiring mind in South-Western Ireland, before the suppression of the
Land League? Unquestionably---Police!
On the way back to his employer, the banker's clerk paid a visit to an
old friend--a journalist by profession, and a man of varied learning
and experience as well. Invited to inspect the remarkable morsel of
paper, and to discover the object with which the perforations had been
made, the authority consulted proved to be worthy of the trust reposed
in him. Dennis left the newspaper office an enlightened man--with
information at the disposal of Sir Giles, and with a sense of relief
which expressed itself irreverently in these words: "Now I have got
him!"
The bewildered banker looked backwards and forwards from the paper to
the clerk, and from the clerk to the paper. "I don't understand it," he
said. "Do you?"
Still preserving the appearance of humility, Dennis asked leave to
venture on a guess. The perforated paper looked, as he thought, like a
Puzzle. "If we wait for a day or two," he suggested, "the Key to it may
possibly reach us."
On the next day, nothing happened. On the day after, a second letter
made another audacious demand on the fast failing patience of Sir Giles
Mountjoy.
Even the envelope proved to be a Puzzle on this occasion; the postmark
was "Ardoon." In other words, the writer had used the postman as a
messenger, while he or his accomplice was actually in the town, posting
the letter within half-a-minute's walk of the bank! The contents
presented an impenetrable mystery, the writing looked worthy of a
madman. Sentences appeared in the wildest state of confusion, and words
were so mutilated as to be unintelligible. This time the force of
circumstances was more than Sir Giles could resist. He took the clerk
into his confidence at last.
"Let us begin at the beginning," he said. "There is the letter you saw
on my bed, when I first sent for you. I found it waiting on my table
when I woke; and I don't know who put it there. Read it."
Dennis read as follows: "Sir Giles Mountjoy,--I have a disclosure to make, in which one of the
members of your family is seriously interested. Before I can venture to
explain myself, I must be assured that I can trust to your good faith.
As a test of this, I require you to fulfil the two conditions that
follow--and to do it without the slightest loss of time. I dare not
trust you yet with my address, or my signature. Any act of
carelessness, on my part, might end fatally for the true friend who
writes these lines. If you neglect this warning, you will regret it to
the end of your life."