"Dear me! Dear me!" fussed The Thinking Machine. "Don't do that. It annoys me exceedingly."
Some three months later, when the search for George Francis Hayden had become only lukewarm, this being three days before Miss Meredith's wedding to Dick Herbert, she received a small box containing a solitaire ring and a note. It was brief:
In memory of one night in the woods and of what happened there, permit me to give this—you can't return it. It is one of the few things honest money from me ever paid for.
Bill, the Burglar.
While Dollie examined the ring with mingled emotions Dick stared at the postmark on the package.
"It's a corking good clew," he said enthusiastically.
Dollie turned to him, recognising a menace in the words, and took the paper which bore the postmark from his hands.
"Let's pretend," she said gently—"let's pretend we don't know where it came from!"
Dick stared a little and kissed her.
Transcriber's Notes:
Repaired obvious spelling and punctuation typos. Period spellings and unusual grammatical usages retained.
Both "waggon" and "wagon" were used in this text, consistent within character voices—retained.