With a premonition of evil for which he could not account, Anstice took the paper from Sir Richard and, turning to the window so that the pale autumn sunlight might fall upon the letter, he read the few lines scrawled in the middle of the sheet.
"Dr. Anstice is a murderer he killed a woman in India by shooting her because she was in the way when he wanted to escape."
That was all. There was no heading, no signature, not even the cynical assurance of well-wishing which is the hall-mark, so to speak, of the typical anonymous letter; and as Anstice read the ill-written words his first sensation was of wonder as to who his secret enemy might be.
When he had finished he turned the sheet over in his hands to see if perchance the writer might have more to say; but the other side of the paper was blank; and he looked at Sir Richard with an expression of utter bewilderment.
"Well?" Sir Richard interrogated him with interest. "Pretty sort of document, eh? I suppose the writing conveys nothing to your mind?"
"Nothing at all." Holding the paper to the light, Anstice examined the ill-formed characters more closely. "It does not resemble any handwriting I know. But I suppose"--he smiled rather grimly--"the test of a successful anonymous correspondent is to disguise his writing efficiently."
"Yes." Sir Richard stretched out his hand for the paper and Anstice yielded it to him without regret. "Well, it is pretty evident that someone has--to put it vulgarly--got his knife into you. The question is, who can it be?"
"Well, it's a question I'm not clever enough to answer," returned Anstice, with assumed lightness. "All men have enemies, I suppose, and I won't swear I've never made any in my life. But I can't at the moment recall one who would stoop to fight with such dirty weapons as these."
"Dirty--that's just the word for it," said Sir Richard disgustedly. "But you know, Anstice, this sort of thing can't be allowed to go on. For your own sake, and for the sake of others"--he paused, then repeated himself deliberately--"for the sake of others it must be stopped--at once."
"I quite agree with you that it must be stopped," said Anstice slowly, "though I hardly see how the matter affects anyone except myself. Of course"--he looked Sir Richard squarely in the face as he spoke--"it is no use denying there is a certain amount of truth in this accusation against me. I wonder if you have the patience to listen to a story--the story of a great mistake made, unfortunately, by me some years ago."