“He’s at the Home Office.”

“At the Home Office!”

Some hint of utter bewilderment in Theydon’s tone must have reached the girl’s alert ear.

“Ah!  Touché!” she cried.  “Now will you be good and tell me why Dad should receive a little ivory skull by this morning’s post?”

Theydon knew that he paled.  His very scalp tingled with an apprehension of some shadowy yet none the less affrighting evil.  But he schooled himself to say, with a semblance of calm interest: 

“What exactly do you mean, Miss Forbes?”

She laughed lightly.  Theydon was so flurried that he did not realize the possibility of Evelyn Forbes being as quick to mask her real feelings as he himself was.

“Dad and I make a point of breakfasting together at nine o’clock every morning,” she said.  “We were talking about you, and he told me of the dreadful thing that happened to Mrs. Lester.  I was reading the account of the tragedy in a newspaper, when I happened to glance at him.  He was going through his letters, and I was just a trifle curious to know what was in a flat box which came by registered post.  He opened it carelessly and something fell out and rolled across the table.  I picked it up and saw that it was a small piece of ivory, carved with extraordinary skill to represent a skull.  Indeed, it was so clever as to be decidedly repulsive.  I was going to say something when I saw that the letter which was in the same box had alarmed him so greatly that, for a second or two, I thought he would faint.  But he can be very strong and stern at times, and he recovered himself instantly, was quite vexed with me because I had examined the ivory skull, and forbade my going out until he had returned from the Home Office.  Tomlinson and the other men have orders not to admit any one to the house, no matter on what pretext, and I’m sure the letter and its nasty little token are bound up in some way with Mrs. Lester’s death.  Won’t you let me into the secret?  I shan’t scream or do anything foolish, but I do think I am entitled to know what you know if it affects my father.”

A sudden change in the girl’s voice warned Theydon of a restraint of which he had been unconscious hitherto.  He tried to temporize, to whittle away her fears.  That was a duty he owed to Forbes, who was clearly resolved not to take his daughter into his confidence—­ for the present, at any rate.

“I really fail to see why you should assume some connection between the crime which was committed here on Monday night and the arrival of a somewhat singular package at your house this morning,” he said reassuringly.

“Like every other woman, I jump at conclusions,” she answered.  “Why should this crime, in particular, have worried my father?  Unfortunately, the newspapers are full of such horrid things, yet he hardly ever pays them any attention.  No, Mr. Theydon, I am not mistaken.  He either knew Mrs. Lester, and was shocked at her death, or saw in it some personal menace.  Then comes the letter, with its obvious threat, and I am ordered to remain at home, under a strong guard, while he hurries off to Whitehall.  You have met my father, Mr. Theydon.  Do you regard him as the sort of man who would rush off in a panic to consult the Home Secretary without very grave and weighty reasons?”