“Just so. You are a trustee-morally. I quite understand.”

Miss Treherne leaned an elbow on the table and rested her cheek upon her hand.

“It’s very difficult,” she said. “I had to give you the background, because without it you wouldn’t understand. About three months ago I got an anonymous letter. Of course, I’ve had them before, but it was different-”

“I hope you kept it, Miss Treherne.”

Rachel shook her head.

“Oh, no, I destroyed it at once. And it wouldn’t have helped you. It was just words cut out of a newspaper and stuck on to the commonest white writing-paper. There was no beginning and no signature. It said, ‘You have had that money long enough. It is other people’s turn now.’ ”

“Did it come by post?”

“Yes-with a London postmark. That was on August the twenty-sixth. A week later there was another, very short. It said, ‘You have lived long enough.’ And a week later again a third letter, ‘Get ready to die.’ ”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me! And you did not keep any of them. What a pity. How were the envelopes addressed?”

Rachel Treherne moved, sat back in her chair, and said,

“That is the strange part of it. The address in each case had been cut from a letter which I had already received.”

“You mean the envelope was an old one?”

“No, not the envelope. But a couple of inches with my name and address had been cut from a letter which had come to me through the post, and gummed on to a new envelope.”

“From what letters were they taken?”

“The first from a letter addressed by my sister Mabel, Mrs. Wadlow, the second from a letter from a cousin, Miss Ella Comperton and the third from another cousin, a young girl, Caroline Ponsonby. But of course it had nothing to do with them. Their letters had reached me and been read, and the envelopes thrown aside.”