paper lying about the ground. I should have crumpled the message deep
down in the bottom of a pocket, and burnt it later, when I was safe in
my own tent. Yes, that was what any man as quick-witted and unscrupulous
as Sidney Vandyke would have been likely to do. He could not possibly
have forgotten such a bit of evidence afterward, and left it in the
pocket of his coat instead of destroying it; such things could happen
only in the crudest melodramas, where the actors were mere puppets for
uncritical and ignorant audiences to applaud. It was wildly absurd to
dream that I might find any hidden treasure tucked away in a
breast-pocket of Sidney Vandyke's cast-off uniform; and I did not for a
moment believe it; yet the vision of the khaki-coloured paper had been
so clear that I dared not resist the impulse it prompted.

I picked up the coat, holding it away from me gingerly, by the collar,
as a small white cat might grip a large brown rat by the back of its
neck. Then, also gingerly, I dipped my fingers into one pocket after
another. All were empty: yet now quite distinctly I heard a crisp,
delicate crackling of paper.

It was like searching for a ghost and seeing no sign, but catching a
faint echo of invisible feet. Something was hidden there. I could not be
mistaken. Perhaps the thing when found would not be worth finding; but a
thousand times over, it was worth the pain of looking for.

I cleared a place on the large table which had been spread with
contributions for the refugees, and laid the coat out flat. All over the
two fronts I slowly, carefully, passed my fingers until, between the
cloth and lining, far down on the left side near the edge of the coat, I
touched the thing that crackled.

Whatever it was, this thing must have slipped down through a break in
one of the pockets. I explored again, and discovered a small rip not
more than two inches in length at the bottom of the inside
breast-pocket. But the lost bit of paper could not be got at through
this opening. The lining of the coat would have to be slit down before
the hidden thing could be reached, and I pulled the pocket wrong side
out, hoping with a quick jerk to tear it from the coat. More easily said
than done! The material was expensively tough, and resisted my frantic
tuggings, yet I wouldn't give up. I dared not go foraging downstairs for
a pair of scissors; neither did I wish to ring for a servant to bring me
them. I wanted desperately to be alone wit