n a hand that
showed plain signs of great distress and agitation: "You are in great
danger. I don't know what. I heard them talking. They spoke as though
something threatened you, something you could not escape. Be careful,
very careful. You asked me once if I had ever heard a man with a high,
squeaky voice, and I did not answer. It was to a man with a voice like
that I gave the packing-case I took away from here the night you came.
Do you remember? He was here all last night, I think. I saw him go very
early. He is Mr. Walter Dunsmore. I saw him that day at Wreste Abbey,
and I knew I had seen him before. This morning I recognized him. I am
sure because he hurt his hand on the packing-case lid, and I saw the
mark there still. He and my stepfather were talking all night, I think
I couldn't hear everything. There is a General Dunsmore. Something is
to happen to him at three o'clock and then to you later, and they both
laughed a great deal because they think you will be blamed for whatever
happens to General Dunsmore. He is to be enticed somewhere to meet
you, but you are not to be there till four, too late. I am afraid, more
afraid than ever I have been. What shall I do? I think they are making
plans to do something awful. I don't know what to do. I think my
stepfather suspects I know something, he keeps looking, looking, smiling
all the time. Please come back and take mother and me away, for I think
he means to kill us both."

There was no signature, but written like an afterthought across one
corner of the note were the scribbled words:

"You told me something once, I don't know if you meant it." And then,
underneath, was the addition--"He never stops smiling."

Twice over Dunn read this strange, disturbing message, and then a third
time, and he made a little gesture of annoyance for it did not seem to
him that the words he read made sense, or else it was that his brain no
longer worked normally, and could not interpret them.

"Oh, but that's absurd," he said aloud.

He looked all around him, surprised to see that the face of the
country-side had not changed in any way, but was all just as it had been
before this letter had been put into his hands.

He began to read a third, but stopped half-way through the first
sentence.

"Then it's Walter all the time," he muttered. "Walter--Walter!"

CHAPTER XXVI. A RACE AGAINST TIME

Even when he had said this aloud it was still as though he could not
grasp its ful