V.
Anonymous Letter addressed to Mr. Pendril.
"SIR—A word to the wise. The friends of a certain young lady are
wasting time and money to no purpose. Your confidential clerk and your
detective policeman are looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. This is
the ninth of October, and they have not found her yet: they will as soon
find the Northwest Passage. Call your dogs off; and you may hear of the
young lady's safety under her own hand. The longer you look for her, the
longer she will remain, what she is now—lost."
[The preceding letter is thus indorsed, in Mr. Pendril's handwriting: "No apparent means of tracing the inclosed to its source. Post-mark, 'Charing Cross.' Stationer's stamp cut off the inside of the envelope. Handwriting, probably a man's, in disguise. Writer, whoever he is, correctly informed. No further trace of the younger Miss Vanstone discovered yet."]