come up and claim his own.' Where they came from, or who they
are, nobody has an idea. They are very violent. Twice Henderson
has lashed at folk with his dog-whip, and only his long purse and
heavy compensation have kept him out of the courts.

"Well, now, Watson, let us judge the situation by this new
information. We may take it that the letter came out of this
strange household and was an invitation to Garcia to carry out
some attempt which had already been planned. Who wrote the note?
It was someone within the citadel, and it was a woman. Who then
but Miss Burnet, the governess? All our reasoning seems to point
that way. At any rate, we may take it asa hypothesis and see
what consequences it would entail. I may add that Miss Burnet's
age and character make it certain that my first idea that there
might be a love interest in our story is out of the question.

"If she wrote the note she was presumably the friend and
confederate of Garcia. What, then, might she be expected to do
if she heard of his death? If he met it in some nefarious
enterprise her lips might be sealed. Still, in her heart, she
must retain bitterness and hatred against those who had killed
him and would presumably help so far as she could to have revenge
upon them. Could we see her, then and try to use her? That was
my first thought. But now we come to a sinister fact. Miss
Burnet has not been seen by any human eye since the night of the
murder. From that evening she has utterly vanished. Is she
alive? Has she perhaps met her end on the same night as the
friend whom she had summoned? Or is she merely a prisoner?
There is the point which we still have to decide.