“My dears, don’t you worry about that,” he reassured them soothingly.  “There’ll be no comeback.  That detective and his agency, and Mrs. Allistair behind them, first tried robbery, then tried bribery.  They’re all in bad themselves.  So stop worrying; you’re in no danger at all from arrest for forgery or fraud.  There’ll never be a peep from any of them.”

This seemed sound reasoning, but Mrs. De Peyster did not acknowledge herself comforted.

“Besides,” Mr. Pyecroft went on, with a sudden flash of wrathful contempt, “if there’s anybody under God’s sun I like to slip something over on it’s those damned vermin of private detectives!  And the swells that employ them!  I hope that Mrs. Allistair gets stung good and plenty!”

“But Mrs. De Peyster!” wailed that lady—­she couldn’t help it, though she tried to keep inarticulate her sense of complete annihilation.  “When they publish that letter the damage will have been done.  It’s a forgery, but nobody will believe her when she says so, and she can’t prove it!  She’ll be ruined!”

“Well,” Mr. Pyecroft commented casually, “I don’t see where that bothers us.  She’s pretty much of a stiff, too, and I wouldn’t mind handing her one while we’re at it.  But, Lord, this won’t hurt her a bit.”

Mrs. De Peyster sat suddenly upright.

“Not hurt her?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” chortled Mr. Pyecroft.  “Why, when our excellent friend, Mr. Brown, presents the Duke’s letter to-morrow morning to his chief, or to Mrs. Allistair’s agent,—­if he ever gets that far,—­he will turn triumphantly over one sheet of Brentanos’ very best notepaper—­blank.”

“Blank?” cried Mrs. De Peyster.

Mr. Pyecroft’s right eyelid drooped in its remarkable wink; his mouth again tilted high to starboard in its impish smile.

“You see,” he remarked, “the Duke’s letter was written in an ink of my own invention.  One trifling idiosyncracy of that ink is that it fades completely and permanently in exactly twelve hours.”

CHAPTER XVII

A QUESTION OF IDENTITY

Mr. Pyecroft’s grin grew by degrees more delighted:  became the smile of a whimsical genius of devil-may-care, of an exultantly mischievous Pan.  But he offered not a word of comment upon his work.  He was an artist who was, in the main, content to achieve his masterpieces and leave comment and blame and praise to his public and his critics.

He stood up.

“I believe I promised to peel the potatoes and put on the roast,” he remarked, and went out.

“Matilda,” breathed Mrs. De Peyster, numbed and awed, still aghast, “did you ever dream there could be such a man?”

“Oh, ma’am,—­never!”—­tragically, wildly.

“Whatever is he going to do next?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, ma’am.  Almost anything.”

“And whatever is going to happen to us next?”