“I was looking for a Letter.”

“Letters, letters!” he said.  “When will you women learn not to write letters.  Although”—­he looked at me closely—­“you look rather young for that sort of thing.”  He sighed.  “It’s born in you, I daresay,” he said.

Well, for all his patronizing ways, he was not very old himself.

“Of course,” he said, “if you are telling the truth—­and it sounds fishy, I must say—­it’s hardly a Police matter, is it?  It’s rather one for diplomasy.  But can you prove what you say?”

“My word should be suficient,” I replied stiffly.  “How do I know that you belong here?”

“Well, you don’t, as a matter of fact.  Suppose you take my word for that, and I agree to beleive what you say about the wrong apartment, Even then it’s rather unusual.  I find a pale and determined looking young lady going through my desk in a business-like manner.  She says she has come for a Letter.  Now the question is, is there a Letter?  If so, what Letter?”

“It is a love letter,” I said.

“Don’t blush over such a confession,” he said.  “If it is true, be proud of it.  Love is a wonderful thing.  Never be ashamed of being in love, my child.”

“I am not in love,” I cried with bitter furey.

“Ah!  Then it is not your letter!”

“I wrote it.”

“But to simulate a passion that does not exist—­that is sackrilege.  It is——­”

“Oh, stop talking,” I cried, in a hunted tone.  “I can’t bear it.  If you are going to arrest me, get it over.”

“I’d rather not arrest you, if we can find a way out.  You look so young, so new to Crime!  Even your excuse for being here is so naive, that I—­won’t you tell me why you wrote a love letter, if you are not in love?  And whom you sent it to?  That’s important, you see, as it bears on the case.  I intend,” he said, “to be judgdicial, unimpassioned, and quite fair.”

“I wrote a love letter” I explained, feeling rather cheered, “but it was not intended for any one, Do you see?  It was just a love letter.”

“Oh,” he said.  “Of course.  It is often done.  And after that?”

“Well, it had to go somewhere.  At least I felt that way about it.  So I made up a name from some malted milk tablets——­”

“Malted milk tablets!” he said, looking bewildered.

“Just as I was thinking up a name to send it to,” I explained, “Hannah—­that’s mother’s maid, you know—­brought in some hot milk and some malted milk tablets, and I took the name from them.”

“Look here,” he said, “I’m unpredjudiced and quite calm, but isn’t the `mother’s maid’ rather piling it on?”

“Hannah is mother’s maid, and she brought in the milk and the tablets, I should think,” I said, growing sarcastic, “that so far it is clear to the dullest mind.”

“Go on,” he said, leaning back and closing his eyes.  “You named the letter for your mother’s maid—­I mean for the malted milk.  Although you have not yet stated the name you chose; I never heard of any one named Milk, and as to the other, while I have known some rather thoroughly malted people—­however, let that go.”