“How are you, Miss Simpson?” he said to Matilda.  “Your niece told me I’d find you here, so I came right up.  Could I have a word with you outside?”

“Couldn’t you have it here just as well,” suggested Mr. Pyecroft—­who somehow had imperceptibly taken on an air of mediocrity.  “We’re all in the family, you know.”

“Mebbe it’d be better to have it here,” agreed the cabinet-maker.  “You other two are living in the house, so I understand, because you’re hard up; so your needing money may help what I’m after.”  He suddenly and visibly expanded with importance.  “When the time comes to put my cards on the table, I don’t waste a minute in showing my hand.  That cabinet-maker business was all con.  I’m an officer of the law.”

“You don’t say!” cried Mr. Pyecroft with a startled air.

“A detective.  Brown’s my name.  I’m here hunting for something.  I got part of what I wanted, but not all.  What I want isn’t here, or I’d have found it; there’s only three or four places it’d have been locked up.  I know,” he ended, with driving confidence, “that a letter was written to Mrs. De Peyster by the Duke de Crecy saying he couldn’t marry her.  That letter is what I’m after.”

“Oh!” breathed Mr. Pyecroft.  And then with his wide-eyed mediocrity, “I wonder whom you represent.”

“Mrs. Allistair!” exclaimed Matilda.

Mrs. De Peyster long since had been silently exclaiming the same.

“Why, what could Mrs. Allistair want it for?” queried the futile-looking brother.

“Never mind who I represent, or the reasons of the party,” said Mr. Brown.  “That letter is what I’m after, and I’m willing to pay for it.  That’s what ought to concern you folks.”

“But if there ever was such a letter,” commented Mr. Pyecroft with his simple-minded manner, “perhaps Mrs. de Peyster destroyed it.”

“Perhaps she did.  But I found two others he wrote her.  And if she didn’t tear it up or burn it, I’m going to have it!”

He directed himself at Matilda, and spoke slowly, suggestively, impressively.  “Confidential servants, who think a bit of number one, should be on the lookout for documents and letters that may be of future value to themselves.  I guess you get me.  For the original of the letter I’m willing to come across with five hundred dollars.”

“But I have no such letter!” cried Matilda.

“I might make it a thousand,” conceded the detective.  “And,” he added, “the money might come in very handy for your sick sister there.”

“But I tell you I have no such letter!”

“Say fifteen hundred, then.”

“But I haven’t got it!” cried Matilda.

“Perhaps you may have it without knowing what it is.  Some of his letters he signed only with an initial.  Here is a sample of the Duke’s handwriting—­one of his letters I found.”

“I tell you I have—­”

“Pardon me, Mr. Brown,” interrupted the ineffectual-looking Mr. Pyecroft.  “May I see the handwriting, please?”