“Your grace will be so good as to bring five hundred pounds in gold to the Piccadilly end of the Burlington Arcade within an hour of the receipt of this.  The Duchess of Datchet has been kidnaped.  An imitation duchess got into the carriage, which was waiting outside Cane and Wilson’s, and she alighted on the road.  Unless your grace does as you are requested, the Duchess of Datchet’s left-hand little finger will be at once cut off, and sent home in time to receive the prince to dinner.  Other portions of her grace will follow.  A lock of her grace’s hair is inclosed with this as an earnest of our good intentions.

“Before 5:30 p.m. your grace is requested to be at the Piccadilly end of the Burlington Arcade with five hundred pounds in gold.  You will there be accosted by an individual in a white top hat, and with a gardenia in his buttonhole.  You will be entirely at liberty to give him into custody, or to have him followed by the police, in which case the duchess’s left arm, cut off at the shoulder, will be sent home for dinner—­not to mention other extremely possible contingencies.  But you are advised to give the individual in question the five hundred pounds in gold, because in that case the duchess herself will be home in time to receive the prince to dinner, and with one of the best stories with which to entertain your distinguished guests they ever heard.

    “Remember! not later than 5:30, unless you wish to receive her
    grace’s little finger.”

The duke stared at this amazing epistle when he had read it as though he found it difficult to believe the evidence of his eyes.  He was not a demonstrative person, as a rule, but this little communication astonished even him.  He read it again.  Then his hands dropped to his sides, and he swore.

He took up the lock of hair which had fallen out of the envelope.  Was it possible that it could be his wife’s, the duchess?  Was it possible that a Duchess of Datchet could be kidnaped, in broad daylight, in the heart of London, and be sent home, as it were, in pieces?  Had sacrilegious hands already been playing pranks with that great lady’s hair?  Certainly, that hair was so like her hair that the mere resemblance made his grace’s blood run cold.  He turned on Messrs. Barnes and Moysey as though he would have liked to rend them.

“You scoundrels!”

He moved forward as though the intention had entered his ducal heart to knock his servants down.  But, if that were so, he did not act quite up to his intention.  Instead, he stretched out his arm, pointing at them as if he were an accusing spirit: 

“Will you swear that it was the duchess who got into the carriage outside Cane and Wilson’s?”

Barnes began to stammer: 

“I’ll swear, your grace, that I—­I thought—­”

The duke stormed an interruption: 

“I don’t ask what you thought.  I ask you, will you swear it was?”