“I don’t think that’s enough.  The Harpoon, like lots of other newspapers, has its social column, and in that column, no doubt, a paragraph like this one about Stella would have a certain sensational value.  But supposing it wasn’t true!  A libel action follows, follows inevitably.  A great deal would be said about the unscrupulous recklessness involved; the judge would come down like a cartload of bricks and the paper would get badly stung.  No editor of any reliable paper would run such a risk.  No sub-editor, left behind with power to alter and insert, would have taken the responsibility.  Before he printed that item of news he would want corroboration of its truth.  That’s certain.  How did he get it?  It was true news, and it was corroborated.  But, again, it was corroborated before the event happened.  How?”

“I haven’t an idea,” cried Sir Chichester.  “I thought I knew something about getting things into the papers, but I see that I am a baby at it.”

“It’s much the more difficult question of the two,” Hillyard agreed.  “But we will go back to the first one.  How did the news reach the Harpoon office yesterday night?  Perhaps you can guess?” and he looked towards Harry Luttrell.

Luttrell, however, was at a loss.

“It’s beyond me,” he replied, and Martin Hillyard understood how that one morning at the little hotel under the Hog’s Back had given to him and him alone the key by which the door upon these dark things might be unlocked.

“The news arrived in the form of a letter marked urgent, which was handed in by the chauffeur of a private motor-car just after midnight.  Of the time there is no doubt.  I saw the editor myself.  The issue would already have gone to press, but late news was expected that night from France, and the paper was waiting for it.  Instead this letter came.”

A look of bewilderment crept into the faces of the group about the table.

“But who in the world could have written it?” cried Sir Chichester in exasperation.

“It was written over your name.”

“Mine?”

The bewilderment in Millie Splay’s face deepened into anxiety.  She looked at her husband with a sudden sinking of her heart.  Had his foible developed into a madness?  Such things had been.  A little gasp broke from her lips.

“But not in your handwriting,” Hillyard hastened to add.

“Whose then?” asked Harry Luttrell suddenly.

“Stella’s,” answered Hillyard.

A shiver ran from one to the other of that small company, and discomfort kept them silent.  A vague dread stole in upon their minds.  It was as though some uncanny presence were in the room.  They had eaten with Stella Croyle in this room, played with her out there in the sunlit garden, and only one of them had suspected the overwhelming despair which had driven her so hard.  They began to blame themselves.  “Poor woman!  Poor woman!” Millie Splay whispered in a moan.