HOBKIN'S HOLE Copplestone carried the queer-looking missive into his private sitting-room and carefully examined it, back and front, before slitting it open.

The envelope was of the cheapest kind, the big splotch of red wax at the flap had been pressed into flatness by the summary method of forcing a coarse-grained thumb upon it; the address was inscribed in ill-formed characters only too evidently made with difficulty by a bad pen, which seemed to have been dipped into watery ink at every third or fourth letter.

And it read thus:-- "THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN STAYING AT 'THE ADMIRAL'-- PRIVATE" The envelope contained nothing but a scrap of paper obviously torn from a penny cash book.

No ink had been used in transcribing the two or three lines which were scrawled across this scrap--the vehicle this time was an indelible pencil, which the writer appeared to have moistened with his tongue every now and then, some letters being thicker and darker than others.

The message, if mysterious, was straightforward enough.