I was too astonished to speak.

“I reasoned like this:  If there was no such bag, there was no harm done.  As a matter of fact, if there was no such bag, the chances were that we were all wrong, anyhow.  If there was such a bag, I wanted it.  Here is the advertisement as I inserted it.”

She gave me a small newspaper cutting

“Lost, a handbag containing private letters, car-tickets, etc.  Liberal reward paid for its return.  Please write to A 31, the Daily News.”

I sat with it on my palm.  It was so simple, so direct.  And I, a lawyer, and presumably reasonably acute, had not thought of it!

“You are wasted on us, Mrs. Dane,” I acknowledged.  “Well?  I see something has come of it.”

“Yes, but I’m not ready for it.”

She dived again into the bag, and brought up another clipping.

“On the day that I had that inserted,” she said impressively, “this also appeared.  They were in the same column.”  She read the second clipping aloud, slowly, that I might gain all its significance: 

“Lost on the night of Monday, November the second, between State Avenue and Park Avenue, possibly on an Eastern Line street car, a black handbag containing keys, car-tickets, private letters, and a small sum of money.  Reward and no questions asked if returned to Daily News office.”

She passed the clipping to me and I compared the two.  It looked strange, and I confess to a tingling feeling that coincidence, that element so much to be feared in any investigation, was not the solution here.  But there was such a chance, and I spoke of it.

“Coincidence rubbish!” she retorted.  “I am not through, my friend.”

She went down into the bag again, and I expected nothing less than the pocketbook, letters and all, to appear.  But she dragged up, among a miscellany of handkerchiefs, a bottle of smelling-salts, and a few almonds, of which she was inordinately fond, an envelope.

“Yesterday,” she said, “I took a taxicab ride.  You know my chair gets tiresome, occasionally.  I stopped at the newspaper office, and found the bag had not been turned in, but that there was a letter for A 31.”  She held out the envelope to me.

“Read it,” she observed.  “It is a curious human document.  You’ll probably be no wiser for reading it, but it shows one thing:  We are on the track of something.”

I have the letter before me now.  It is written on glazed paper, ruled with blue lines.  The writing is of the flowing style we used to call Spencerian, and if it lacks character I am inclined to believe that its weakness is merely the result of infrequent use of a pen.

You know who this is from.  I have the bag and the letters.  In a safe place.  If you would treat me like a human being, you could have them.  I know where the walking-stick is, also.  I will tell you this.  I have no wish to do her any harm.  She will have to pay up in the next world, even if she gets off in this.  The way I reason is this:  As long as I have the things, I’ve got the whiphand.  I’ve got you, too, although you may think I haven’t.