it had worried her.
The payment of the small sum of five thousand dollars would send her
back as well as the day she left. The amount, left in a tin can on the
base of the Maitland shaft in the cemetery, would bring the missing lady
back within twenty-four hours. On the contrary, if the recipient of the
letter notified the police, it would go hard with Miss Jane.

"What do you think of it?" she asked, looking at me over her glasses.
"If she was fool enough to be carried away by a man that spells cemetery
with one m, she deserves what she's got. And I won't pay five thousand,
anyhow, it's entirely too much."

"It doesn't sound quite genuine to me," I said, reading it over. "I
should certainly not leave any money until we had tried to find who left
this."

"I'm not so sure but what she'd better stay a while anyhow," Miss
Letitia pursued. "Now that we know she's living, I ain't so particular
when she gets back. She's been notionate lately anyhow."

I had been reading the note again. "There's one thing here that makes me
doubt the whole story," I said. "What's this about her reading the
papers? I thought her reading glasses were found in the library."

Miss Letitia snatched the paper from me and read it again.

"Reading the paper!" she sniffed. "You've got more sense than I've been
giving you credit for, Knox. Her glasses are here this minute; without
them she can't see to scratch her nose."

It was a disappointment to me, although the explanation was simple
enough. It was surprising that we had not had more attempts to play on
our fears. But the really important thing bearing on Miss Jane's
departure was when Heppie came into the room, with her apron turned up
like a pocket and her dust cap pushed down over her eyes like the slouch
hat of a bowery tough.

When she got to the middle of the room she stopped and abruptly dropped
the corners of her apron. There rolled out a heterogeneous collection of
things: a white muslin garment which proved to be a nightgown, with long
sleeves and high collar; a half-dozen hair curlers--I knew those; Edith
had been seen, in midnight emergencies, with her hair twisted around
just such instruments of torture--a shoe buttoner; a railroad map, and
one new and unworn black kid glove.

Miss Letitia changed her glasses deliberately, and took a comprehensive
survey of the things on the floor.

"Where did you get 'em?" she said, fixing Heppie with an awful eye.

"I found 'em stuffed u