Jennings bowed and repeated his remark.  Aunt Josephine followed him out into the hall.

There, already, the delivery men had set down a huge oriental vase with a remarkably long and narrow neck.  It was, as befitted such a really beautiful object of art, most carefully crated.  But to Aunt Josephine it came as a complete surprise.  “I can’t imagine who could have sent it,” she temporized.  “Are you quite sure it is for me?”

The expressman, with a book, looked up from the list of names down which he was running his finger.  “This is Mrs. Dodge, isn’t it?” he asked, pointing with his pencil to the entry with the address following it.  There seemed to be no name of a shipper.

“Yes,” she replied dubiously, “but I don’t understand it.  Wait just a moment”

She went to the library door.  “Mr. Kennedy,” she said, “may I trouble you and Mr. Jameson a moment?”

We followed her into the hall and there stood gazing at the mysterious gift while she related its recent history.

“Why not set it up in the library?” I suggested, seeing that the expressmen were getting restive at the delay.  “If there is any mistake, they will send for it soon.  No one ever gets anything for nothing.”

Aunt Josephine turned to the expressmen and nodded.  With the aid of Jennings they carried the vase into the library and there it was uncrated, while Kennedy continued to question the man with the book, without eliciting any further information than that he thought it had been reconsigned from another express company.  He knew nothing more than that it had been placed on his wagon, properly marked and prepaid.

When Kennedy rejoined us, the vase had been completely uncrated, Aunt Josephine signed for it, and, grumbling a bit, the expressmen left.  There we stood, nonplussed by the curious gift.

Craig walked around the vase, looking at it critically.  I had a feeling of being watched, one of those sensations which psychologists tell us are utterly baseless and unfounded.  I was glad I had not said anything about it when he tapped the vase with his cane, then stuck it down the long narrow neck, working it around as well as he could.  The neck was so long and narrow, however, that his stick could not fully explore the inside of the vase, but it seemed to me to be quite empty.

“Well, there’s nothing in it, anyhow,” I ventured.

I had spoken too soon.  Kennedy withdrew his cane and on the ferrule, adhering as though by some sticky substance, was a note.  Kennedy pulled it off and unfolded it, while we gathered about him.

“Maybe it’s from Elaine,” cried Aunt Josephine, grasping at a straw.

We read: 

Dear aunt Josephine,

This is a token that I am unharmed.  Have Mr. Kennedy give the ring to the man at the corner of Williams and Brownlee Avenues at midnight to-night, and they will surrender me to him.—­Elaine.