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150 I appealed to Doran, and he has written to Lake, to the editor, whom he happens to know."

"It would be hard to find hereabouts a man of any importance whatever whom Sam Doran does not know. He grew up in Lake County, and has held half the offices in the county's gift."

"There may be a clue for us in that clipping. I discovered another thing in that room. The dead man wrote, or began, a letter to his brother. I learned this from a scrap, dated and addressed, which I found in the waste basket, and I am led to believe the letter was re-written, or rather begun anew, and sent, from the fact that a fresh blotter showed a fragment of Brierly's name, and the city address. That letter, if mailed, must have passed him as he came down. Did he mention getting it?"

Doctor Barnes shook his head.

"He said nothing about such a letter," he replied. "Does he know about this—this newspaper business?"

"Not a word. No one knows it but yourself. If it should prove to be a clue in my hands, it may be better, it will be better, I am sure, to keep it at present between us two. I think, however, that I may decide to show Miss—my cousin—that anonymous letter, and tell her something about that mysterious boy and his visit to her lover's rooms." And then Ferrars