"Where did he take you to?"
"He took me to Draper's Buildings."
"Draper's Buildings?"
"I have never been in the City before, but he told me it was Draper's
Buildings. Isn't that near the Stock Exchange?"
"Near the Stock Exchange?"
It seemed rather a curious place to which to take a kidnaped victim. The
man's audacity!
"He told me that you were coming out of the Stock Exchange when a van
knocked you over. He said that he thought it was a Pickford's van--was it
a Pickford's van?"
"No, it was not a Pickford's van. Mabel, were you in Draper's Buildings
when you wrote that letter?"
"Wrote what letter?"
"Have you forgotten it already? I do not believe that there is a word in
it which will not be branded on my brain until I die."
"Hereward! What do you mean?"
"Surely you cannot have written me such a letter as that, and then have
forgotten it already?"
He handed her the letter which had arrived in the second communication.
She glanced at it, askance. Then she took it with a little gasp.
"Hereward, if you don't mind, I think I'll take a chair." She took a
chair. "Whatever--whatever's this?" As she read the letter the varying
expressions which passed across her face were, in themselves, a study in
psychology. "Is it possible that you can imagine that, under any
conceivable circumstances, I could have written such a letter as this?"
"Mabel!"
She rose to her feet with emphasis.
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