"I am rich and I have no time to spare. Hence this offer. I take it that you are a man of common sense, and I take it for granted, therefore, that you will not hesitate to accept this offer. Your acquiescence will be assumed if you lunch at the Grand Hotel, Cromer, between one and two, on Thursday following the receipt of this letter. You will then be put in full possession of all the information necessary to the carrying out of the proposals made to you. You are well known to the writer, who will take the liberty of joining you at your table."
The letter ended thus somewhat abruptly. Wolfenden, who had only glanced it through at first, now re-read it carefully. Then he handed it back to Blatherwick.
"It is a very curious communication," he said thoughtfully, "a very curious communication indeed. I do not know what to think of it."
Mr. Blatherwick laid down his cigar with an air of great relief. He would have liked to have thrown it away, but dared not.
"It must surely be intended for a practical joke, Lord Wolfenden," he said. "Either that, or my correspondent has been ludicrously misinformed."
"You do not consider, then, that my father's work is of any value at all?" Wolfenden asked.
Mr. Blatherwick coughed apologetically, and watched the extinction of the cigar by his side with obvious satisfaction.
"You would, I am sure, prefer," he said, "that I gave you a perfectly straightforward answer to that question. I--er--cannot conceive that the work upon which his lordship and I are engaged can be of the slightest interest or use to anybody. I can assure you, Lord Wolfenden, that my brain at times reels--positively reels--from the extraordinary nature of the manuscripts which your father has passed on to me to copy. It is not that they are merely technical, they are absolutely and entirely meaningless. You ask me for my opinion, Lord Wolfenden, and I conceive it to be my duty to answer you honestly. I am quite sure that his lordship is not in a fit state of mind to undertake any serious work."
"The person who wrote that letter," Wolfenden remarked, "thought otherwise."
"The person who wrote that letter," Mr. Blatherwick retorted quickly, "if indeed it was written in good faith, is scarcely likely to know so much about his lordship's condition of mind as I, who have spent the greater portion of every day for three months with him."