Tracks in the Snow by Godfrey R. Benson — Read

My story draws towards its close, and of mystery or of sudden peril it has little more to tell. Upon one point, the most vital to me, let me not give the reader a moment's suspense. My wife did not die of poison, had not been poisoned, had not been ill, had not sent that telegram. What had happened was this: on one single occasion she had not despatched her own message herself; through the misunderstanding or too prompt courtesy of her host's butler, the telegram which she had written had been taken by a messenger, and it had fallen into the hands of the enemy's watchful emissary. It had revealed to him the password which my wife used to me; and in its place there had gone over the wires a message which would indeed have called me back at any stage of the pursuit, but which was fated to arrive neither sooner nor later than the moment when it must destroy Vane-Cartwright's last hope of escape.

I say not later, for indeed I have evidence strong enough for my now suspicious mind that Vane-Cartwright had endeavoured to prepare his escape in the event of his failure to persuade Callaghan and myself. An unoccupied flat immediately below Callaghan's had the day before been engaged by a nameless man, who paid a quarter's rent in advance, and on the day of his interview with us, several strange persons, who were never seen there again, arrived with every sign of belated haste; but, whatever accident had delayed them, they arrived a quarter of an hour after we had left.