e secrets with a
stranger took hold of Sharlee as she leaned forward to see what it might
say.

"Be careful! Your feather thing is sticking my eye."

Meekly the girl withdrew to a safer distance. From there she read with
amazement the six typewritten lines which was all that the letter proved
to be. They read thus:

Your father asks that, if you have any of the natural feelings of a
son, you will at once leave New York and take up your residence in
this city. This is the first request he has ever made of you, as it
will be, if you refuse it, the last. But he earnestly begs that you
will comply with it, anticipating that it will be to your decided
advantage to do so.

"The envelope that that came in," said Queed, briskly laying it down.
"Now here's the envelope that the twenty dollars came in--it is exactly
like the other two, you observe.--The last exhibit is somewhat
remarkable; it came yesterday. Read that."

Sharlee required no urging. She read:

Make friends; mingle with people, and learn to like them. This is
the earnest injunction of

Your father.

"Note especially," said the young man, "the initial Q on each of the
three envelopes. You will observe that the tail in every instance is
defective in just the same way."

Sure enough, the tail of every Q was broken off short near the root,
like the rudimentary tail anatomists find in Genus Homo. Mr. Queed
looked at her with scholarly triumph.

"I suppose that removes all doubt," said she, "that all these came from
the same person."

"Unquestionably.--Well? What do they suggest to you?"

A circle of light from the green-shaded desk-lamp beat down on the three
singular exhibits. Sharlee studied them with bewilderment mixed with
profound melancholy.

"Is it conceivable," said she, hesitatingly--"I only suggest this
because the whole thing seems so extraordinary--that somebody is playing
a very foolish joke on you?"

He stared. "Who on earth would wish to joke with me?"

Of course he had her there. "I wish," she said, "that you would tell me
what you yourself think of them."

"I think that my father must be very hard up for something to do."

"Oh--I don't think I should speak of it in that way if I were you."

"Why not? If he cites filial duty to me, why shall I not cite paternal
duty to him? Why should he confine his entire relations with me in
twenty-four years to two preposterous detective-story letter