"Well, of course," Bruce resumed, "I wasn't much of a private secretary really, and one day I forgot all about this injunction. Some days old H.P. got as many as three hundred letters. I was alone at Harkings with him, I remember, Jeekes was up at Sheffield and the other secretaries were away ill or something, and in the rush of dealing with this enormous mail I slit one of these blue envelopes open with the rest. I discovered what I had done only after I had got all the letters sorted out, this one with the rest. So I went straight to old H.P. and told him. By Jove!"

"What happened?" said Robin.

"He got into the most paralytic rage," said Bruce. "I have never seen a man in such an absolute frenzy of pa.s.sion. He went right off the hooks, just like that! He fairly put the wind up me. For a minute I thought he was going to kill me. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the letter out of my hand, called me every name under the sun, and finally shouted: 'You're fired, d'ye hear?

I won't employ men who disobey my orders! Get out of this before I do you a mischief! I went straight off. And I never saw him again ..."

Robin Greve looked very serious. But his face displayed no emotion as he asked:

"And what was in the letter for him to make such a fuss about?"

The boy shrugged his shoulders.

"That was the extraordinary part of it. The letter was perfectly harmless. It was an ordinary business letter from a firm in Holland ..."

"In Holland?" cried Greve. "Did you say in Holland? Tell me the name!

No, wait, see if I can remember. 'Van' something--'Speck' or 'Spike' ..."

"I remember the name perfectly," answered Bruce, rather puzzled by the other's sudden outburst; "it was Van der Spyck and Co. of Rotterdam. We had a good deal of correspondence with them ..."

Robin Greve had opened his cigarette-case and drawn from it a creased square of blue paper folded twice across. Unfolding it, he held up the sheet he had found in the library at Harkings.

"Is that the paper those letters were written on?" he asked.

Bruce took the sheet from him. He held it up to the light.

"Why, yes," came the prompt answer. "I'd know it in a minute. Look, it's the same water-mark. 'Egmont.' Where did you get hold of it?"

"Bruce," said Robin gravely, without answering the question, "we're getting into deep water, boy!"

CHAPTER XV

SHADOWS

Robert Greve stood for an instant in silence by the window of his rooms.

His fingers hammered out a tattoo on the pane. His eyes were fixed on the windows of the chambers across the court. But they did not take in the pleasant prospect of the tall, ivy-framed cas.e.m.e.nts in their mellow setting of warm red brick. He was trying to fix a mental photograph of a letter--typewritten on paper of dark slatey blue--which he had seen on Hartley Parrish's desk in the library at Harkings on the previous afternoon.

Prompted by Bruce Wright, he could now recall the heading clearly.

"ELIAS VAN DER SPYCK & Co., GENERAL IMPORTERS, ROTTERDAM," stood printed before his eyes as plainly as though he still held the typewritten sheet in front of him. But the mind plays curious tricks. Robin's brain had registered the name; yet it recorded no impression of the contents of the letter. Beyond the fact that it dealt in plain commercial fashion with some shipments or other, he could recall no particular whatever of it.

"But where did you get hold of this sheet of paper?" Bruce Wright's voice broke in impatiently behind him. "I'm most frightfully interested to know ..."

"Found it on the floor beside Parrish's body," answered Robin briefly.

"There was a letter, too, on the same paper ..."

"By Gad!" exclaimed the boy eagerly, "have you got that too?"

Robin shook his head.

"It was only your story that made me think of it. I had the letter. But I left it where I found it--on Parrish's desk in the library ..."

"But you read it ... you know what was in it?"

Robin shrugged his shoulders.

"It was a perfectly straightforward business letter ... something about steel shipments ... I don't remember any more ..."

"A straightforward business letter," commented the boy. "Like the letter I read, eh?..."

"Tell me, Bruce," said Robin, after a moment's silence, "during the time you were with Hartley Parrish, I suppose these blue letters came pretty often?"

Young Wright wrinkled his brow in thought.

"It's rather difficult to say. You see, there were three of us besides old Jeekes, and, of course, these letters might have come without my knowledge anything about it. But during the seven months I worked with H.P. I suppose about half a dozen of these letters pa.s.sed through my hands. They used to worry H.P., you know, Robin ..."

"Worry him?" exclaimed Robin sharply; "how do you mean?"

"Well," said Bruce, "Parrish was a very easygoing fellow, you know. He worked every one--himself included--like the devil, of course. But he was hardly ever nervy or grumpy. And so I was a bit surprised to find--after I had been with him for a time--that every now and then he sort of shrivelled up. He used to look ... well, careworn and ... and haggard. And at these times he was pretty short with all of us. It was such an extraordinary change from his usual cheery, optimistic self that sometimes I suspected him of dope or some horror like that ..."

Robin shook his head. He had a sudden vision of Hartley Parrish, one of his long, black Partagas thrust at an aggressive angle from a corner of his mouth, virile, battling, strong.

"Oh, no," he said, "not dope ..."

"No, no, I know," the boy went on quickly. "It wasn't dope. It was fear ..."

Robin swung round from the window.

"Fear? Fear of what?"

The boy cast a frightened glance over his shoulder rather as if he fancied he might be overheard.

"Of those letters," he replied. "I am sure it was that. I watched him and ... and I _know_. Every time he got one of those letters in the bluish envelopes, these curious fits of gloom came over him. Robin ..."

"What, Bruce?"

"I think he was being blackmailed!"

The barrister nodded thoughtfully.

"Don't you agree?"

The boy awaited his answer eagerly.

"Something very like that," replied the other.

Then suddenly he smashed his fist into the open palm of his other hand.