Mr. Herbert Burroughs

Dear Sir:  Yes, I have lost a gold bag, and I have known all along that it is the one the newspapers are talking so much about in connection with the Crawford case.  I know, too, that you are the detective on the case, and though I can’t imagine how you did it, I think it was awfully clever of you to trace the bag to me, for I’m sure my name wasn’t in it anywhere.  As I say, the bag is mine, but I didn’t kill Mr. Crawford, and I don’t know who did.  I would go straight to you, and tell you all about it, but I am afraid of detectives and lawyers, and I don’t want to be mixed up in the affair anyway.  But I am going to see Miss Lloyd, and explain it all to her, and then she can tell you.  Please don’t let my name get in the papers, as I hate that sort of prominence.

Very truly yours,
Elizabeth Cunningham.

I smiled a little over the femininity of the letter, but as Parmalee had prophesied, Marathon Park was evidently no place to look for our criminal.

The foolish little woman who had written that letter, had no guilty secret on her conscience, of that I was sure.

I telephoned for Parmalee and showed him the letter.

“It doesn’t help us in one way,” he said, “for of course, Mrs. Cunningham is not implicated.  But the bag is still a clue, for how did it get into Mr. Crawford’s office?”

“We must find out who Mr. Cunningham is,” I suggested.

“He’s not the criminal, either.  If he had left his wife’s bag there, he never would have let her send this letter.”

“Perhaps he didn’t know she wrote it.”

“Oh, perhaps lots of things!  But I am anxious to learn what Mrs. Cunningham tells Miss Lloyd.”

“Let us go over to the Crawford house, and tell Miss Lloyd about it.”

“Not this morning; I’ve another engagement.  And besides, the little lady won’t get around so soon.”

“Why a little lady?” I asked, smiling.

“Oh, the whole tone of the letter seems to imply a little yellow-haired butterfly of a woman.”

“Just the reverse of Florence Lloyd,” I said musingly.

“Yes; no one could imagine Miss Lloyd writing a letter like that.  There’s lots of personality in a woman’s letter.  Much more than in a man’s.”

Parmalee went away, and prompted by his suggestions, I studied the letter I had just received.  It was merely an idle fancy, for if Mrs. Cunningham was going to tell Miss Lloyd her story, it made little difference to me what might be her stature or the color of her hair.  But, probably because of Parmalee’s suggestion, I pictured her to myself as a pretty young woman with that air of half innocence and half ignorance which so well becomes the plump blonde type.

The broad veranda of the Sedgwick Arms was a pleasant place to sit, and I had mused there for some time, when Mr. Carstairs came out to tell me that I was asked for on the telephone.  The call proved to be from Florence Lloyd asking me to come to her at once.