"Yes. Isn't it a mercy Jim didn't destroy it? Meant it for the detectives himself, I dare say. Perhaps his not hanging out that piece of ribbon didn't have anything to do with his death. And perhaps it did. Anyhow, wait a bit--I'm a walking post-office this morning. Here's the last exhibit!" And he plumped down on Herrick's knee the duplicate of the typewritten envelope. The postmark, however, was dated August ninth, and it was directed to Ingham senior.
"It opened with the same formalities, but this time its threat ran--
"The _Voice_ will relate the actual circumstances connected with the death of Mr. James Ingham--"
"Jove!" cried Herrick, "that would be something!"
"It will not pause after the story of the young girl whom Ingham abandoned years ago. It will tell how, on the eve of his departure for Europe, just such a story was reënacted, but this time with a close friend of his intended bride, an actress named Ann Cornish; who, on his return, appealed to him for the only reparation in his power; even slandering her friend Christina Hope in the attempt to win him back. Failing in this, she fled, and disappeared--perhaps destroyed herself. It will tell how Miss Hope suspected the intrigue, having quarreled about it with her lover the day before, when he denied all knowledge of Nancy Cornish; how, suspecting an appointment for the evening instead of the afternoon of August fourth, Miss Hope disguised herself in a red wig and dabs of paint about her eyes and penetrated to Ingham's apartment; how, finding no one there, she was placated until she spied Nancy Cornish's card on the piano and how then a terrible quarrel arose; the excitable young woman, springing in front of the window with her arm outstretched, the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in the air, uttered a terrible, low cry, and snatching up Ingham's revolver from the table at the head of the couch, shot him dead. It will follow the flight of Miss Hope exactly as she described it at the inquest--out through the door which Ingham must have bolted behind her. She ran upstairs and escaped over the roof into the apartment house next door. It was a terribly hot night, and, against all rules, the roof-doors of both apartment houses had been fastened back. Miss Hope came quietly downstairs, passed through an entrance hall, empty of the boy who had run to join the crowd in the street, and walked away. This will be the conclusion of the narrative."