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It was typewritten on paper of a dark slatey-blue shade. It was headed, "ELIAS VAN DER SPYCK & Co., GENERAL IMPORTERS, ROTTERDAM," and dealt with steel shipments. Robin dropped the letter back into the tray and turned to survey the room. It was in perfect order.
"Yes, a particular kind of blue a sort of slatey-blue Jeekes showed me one as a guide. Well, these letters were to be handed to Mr. Parrish unopened." Robin had stood up. "That's odd," he said, diving in his pocket. "I say, hold on a bit," protested the boy, "this is really rather important what I am telling you. I'll never finish if you keep on interrupting."
"What's all this about blackmail being levied from Holland?" Then Robin Greve told him of the letters written on the slatey-blue paper and of their effect upon Parrish, and of the letter headed, "Elias van der Spyck & Co., General Importers, Rotterdam," which had lain on the desk in the library when Parrish's dead body had been found. Manderton nodded gloomily.
The animal, with head thrown back, was staring vacantly with its large, slatey-blue eyes. Wargrave trembled with excitement and his heart beat so violently that the rifle shook as he brought it to his shoulder and gently pushed the muzzle through the stiff, dry grass at the edge of the cliff. But for the one necessary instant he became rigidly steady and without a tremor pressed the trigger.
In reply Robin told him the story of Hartley Parrish's death, his growing certainty that the millionaire had been murdered, the mysterious letters on slatey-blue paper, and Jeekes's endeavor to burke the investigations by throwing on Robin the suspicion of having driven Parrish to suicide by threats.
Off to the right the Nore Lightship danced, a tiny fleck of warm crimson in a wilderness of slatey-blue waters, plumed with a myriad of vanishing white-caps. Up the shelving shore, small, puny wavelets dashed in impotent fury, and the shingle sang unceasingly its dreary, syncopated monotone.
"To save their necks in another," he said. "I have the letter here," mildly remarked the doctor from his corner of the room. "Miss Trevert gave it to me!" He produced a white envelope and drew from it a folded square of slatey-blue paper. In great excitement Robin sprang forward. "You're a downy bird, Doctor, I must say," he remarked, "fancy keeping it up your sleeve all this time!"
Manderton resumed, looking round the group and emphasising the "did," "was his will and this letter ..." he held up a typewritten sheet of slatey-blue paper "which, a straightforward business communication in appearance, was in reality a threat against his life. It was with these two documents that Mr. Parrish spent the last few hours before he was found dead in this room.
The sight of that crumpled ball of slatey-blue paper brought back to Robin's mind with astonishing vividness every detail of the scene in the library. Once more he looked into Hartley Parrish's staring, unseeing eyes, saw the firelight gleam again on the heavy gold signet ring on the dead man's hand, the tag of the dead man's bootlace as it trailed from one sprawling foot across the carpet.
Parrish sat at his desk, read through his will, and wrote a letter to Miss Trevert informing her that, under the will, she was left sole legatee. This letter, with the will, was found on the desk after Mr. Parrish's death. Presumably in view of the threat against his life contained in this letter," the detective held up the slatey-blue paper, "Mr.
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