The Dead Letter · Part II · Chapter 2 1 (1/2)

I

The Letter

The reader can now understand why it was that I turned cold with excitement as I sat there in the dead-letter office, holding the time-stained epistle in my hand. Every word burned itself into my brain. Obscure as it was⁠—noncommittal⁠—directed to an unknown person of a neighboring village⁠—I yet felt assured that those vague hints had reference to the sinful tragedy which had occurred October 17th, 1857. Here was placed in my hands⁠—at last!⁠—a clue to that mystery which I had once sworn to unravel. Yet, how slender was the clue, which might, after all, lead me into still profounder labyrinths of doubt and perplexity! As I pondered, it seemed to break and vanish in my fingers. Yet, I felt, in spite of this, an inward sense that I held the key which was surely to unlock the awful secret. I can never rightly express the feelings which, for the first few moments, overpowered me. My body was icy cold, but my soul stung and stirred me as with fire, and seemed to rise on “budding wings” of flame with conviction of a speedy triumph which was to come after long suffering. I arose, clutched my hat, and went forth from the Department, to return to it no more, for the present. Half the night I sat in my room at my boarding-place, looking at that letter on the table before me.

Before I proceed further with its history, I will give, in a few words, the brief, monotonous record of my life, since I was driven⁠—driven is the word you must use, Richard, haughty and sensitive though you may be⁠—from the friendship and presence of the Argylls, and from my prospects of a long-cherished settlement in life. I made the visit to my mother. She was shocked at the change in me, and grieved that I withheld my confidence from her. But, I did not feel in a confiding mood. The gentleness of my nature had been hardened; I was bitter, sneering, skeptical; not from my own mother would I accept the sympathy which my chilled heart seemed no longer to crave. Only one thing saved me from utter loathing of humanity, and that was the memory of Mary’s face, as she had sought me at parting. In those sweet eyes were trust and love; the tears which streamed down and fell upon her bosom, the quiver of her lip, the sobs and fond words, attested to the sorrow with which she had beheld my banishment.

Of course my mother was surprised to hear that I had left Blankville, with no intention of returning to it; that the long-understood partnership was not to be entered into. But, she did not press me for explanations. She waited for me to tell her all, patiently; ministering to my health and comfort, meanwhile, as a widowed mother will minister to an only son⁠—with a tenderness only less than that of heaven, because it is yet, perforce, of earth.

Before I had been at home a fortnight, the unnatural tension of my mind and nerves produced a sure result⁠—a reaction took place, and I fell sick. It was in the softer mood which came over me, as I was convalescing from this illness, that I finally told my mother all the dreadful story of the influences which had broken up my connection with the Argylls. Her grief for me, her indignation against my enemy or enemies, was what might have been expected. I could hardly restrain her from starting at once for Blankville, to stand before her old friend, the friend of my father, and accuse him, face to face, of the wrong he had done her boy. But, out of this I persuaded her. I asked her if she did not see that the wrong was irreparable? I could not forgive it. It did not admit of being talked about; let the cloud drop between them and us; our paths were henceforth apart. To this she finally yielded; and, if there could have been any balm to my wounded pride and still more deeply wounded affections, I should have found it in the enhanced, touching, almost too-perfect tenderness with which my parent sought to make up to me that which I had lost.

For a few weeks I abandoned myself to her healing attentions. Then I set myself resolutely to find work both for hands and mind. My mother was not without influential friends. As I have said, my fortunes were somewhat nipped by my father’s untimely death, but our family and associations were among the best. We had a relative in power at Washington. To him I applied for a clerkship, and received, in answer, the situation I was filling, at the time when that dead-letter came so strangely into my hands.

It may be thought improbable that I should abandon the profession for which I had studied with so much zeal. But, the very memory of that zeal, and of the hopes which had stimulated it, now gave me a dislike to the law. I required both change of scene and of pursuits. The blow dealt at my heart had stunned my ambition, also. To one of my temperament, aspirations, acquisitiveness, all the minor passions and pursuits of life are but steps leading up the hillside to the rose-crowned summit, where love sits smiling under the eye of heaven. And I, being for the time at least, blasted prematurely, was no more myself, but was to myself like a stranger within my own sanctuary. I went into the dead-letter office, and commenced my routine of breaking seals and registering contents, as if I had been born for that business. I was a rapid worker, quiet, and well-thought-of by my associates, who deemed me a little cold and skeptical, a trifle reserved, very steady for so young a fellow, and an efficient clerk who thoroughly earned his salary. That was all they knew of Richard Redfield. And in those days I did not know much more about myself. The months had worn away, one after the other, with a dreary coldness. In the summer I struggled through the suffocating dust; in the winter I picked my way through the disgusting mud, to and fro, from my lodgings to the office buildings; that was about all the change which the seasons brought to me, whom once the smell of spring violets filled with pungent delight, and the odor of June roses made happy as a god on Olympus.

Half the night I sat brooding over that brief revelation, so precious to me, yet so loathsome. The longer I pondered its words the less vivid grew my hope of making any triumphant use of it for the detection of the two guilty persons⁠—the one who wrote it, and the one to whom it was addressed. I might lay it before Mr. Argyll, but he might not feel, as I did, that it had any connection with the murder, neither was there anything to prove but that the missive might have been directed to me. Indeed, Mr. Argyll might well inquire how I could pretend that it should have reached me through the routine of the dead-letter department, after all this stretch of time⁠—very nearly two years!

This was a matter which puzzled me exceedingly. In the ordinary course of affairs, it would, if not claimed, have been forwarded to Washington three months after its reception at Peekskill, and have long ago been consigned to the wastebasket and the flames. The hand of an overruling Providence seemed to be moving the men in this terrible game. At that hour I recognized it, and felt a solemn conviction that, sooner or later, the murderer would be checkmated. It was this assurance, more than any evidence contained in the letter, which gave me hope that it would eventually be the instrument of punishment to the guilty. I remembered the vow I had once made to my soul, never to rest in the peace of my own pursuits, until I had dragged the slayer of the innocent into the awful presence of Justice. That vow I had neglected to fulfill to the uttermost, partly because of the injury which had been done to my self-love, and also because the circumstance which had attached suspicion to me, in the eyes of those interested, had made it dangerous for me to move in a matter where all my motives were misconstrued. But now that Fate had interposed in this singular manner, in my behalf and in that of Truth, I took fresh courage. I was fully startled from my apathy. That night I wrote my resignation to the Department, gathered up my few effects again, and the next morning found me on the way to New York.

My first purpose was to consult Mr. Burton. I had not seen him since the day when we parted in Blankville; I only knew, by accident, that he was still a resident of New York, having casually heard his name mentioned in connection with a case which had brought some detectives on to Washington only a few weeks previous.

I had never forgiven or understood the part he had played in that last interview with the Argylls. I remembered the assurance he had given me of friendship, but I did not believe that he had shown any friendship for me, in that consultation with the relatives, or the results would not have been so disastrous to me. Nevertheless, I felt a confidence in him; he was the man for the emergency, and to him I would take the letter. I thought it quite probable, that in the multiplicity of new interests, the circumstances which had once brought us so much together had faded from his mind, and that I should have to reawaken his recollection of the details.

On the morning after my arrival in New York, I consulted the directory, and finding that Mr. Burton still resided in Twenty-third street, I called at the house at the earliest admissible hour.

While I was handing my card to the servant, his master came out of the library at the end of the hall, and hastening forward, shook me heartily by the hand. His joyous tones were better evidence of his pleasure at seeing me, than even his words, which were cordial enough.

“I heard your voice, Richard,” he said, “and did not wait for you to be ushered in with the formalities. Welcome, my friend;” his expression was as if he had said⁠—“Welcome, my son.”

He led me into the library, and placing me in an armchair, sat down opposite me, looking at me with the well-remembered piercing shafts of those steel-blue eyes. After inquiring about my health, etc., he said, suddenly,

“You have news.”

“You are right, Mr. Burton⁠—else I should not have been here. I suppose you are aware that I have been a clerk in the dead-letter office for the last eighteen months?”

“I was aware of it. I never intended to let you slip out of the numbered rosary of my friends, and lose you so entirely as not even to know your whereabouts.”

“Day before yesterday this letter arrived at the office, and I chanced to be the clerk who opened it.”

I handed him the missive. He examined the envelope attentively, before unfolding the sheet within; and as he continued to hold it in his hand, and gaze at it, one of those wonderful changes passed over his countenance that I had remarked on some previous important occasions. His practical intelligence seized upon the date, the post-office marks, the hasty direction, and made the contents of the letter his own, almost, before he read it. For some moments he pondered the outside, then drew forth the letter, perused it with one swift glance, and sat holding it, gazing at it, lost in thought, and evidently forgetful of my presence. A stern pallor settled gradually over his usually placid face; at last he looked up, and seeing me, recalled his surroundings to his recollection.

“It is sad to be made to feel that such creatures live and flourish,” he said, almost despondingly; “but,” as his face brightened, “I can not say how glad I am to get hold of this. It partially explains some things which I have already found out. The chance which threw this document into your hands was a marvelous one, Richard.”

“However simple the explanation may prove to be, I shall always regard it as Providential.”

“All things are Providential,” said my companion, “none less, and none more so. Causes will have their effects. But now, as to the writer of this⁠—I am glad I have a specimen of the villain’s handwriting; it will enable me to know the writer when I see him.”

“How so, Mr. Burton?”

“Because I have a very good picture of him, now, in my mind’s eye. He is about thirty years of age, rather short and broad-shouldered, muscular; has dark complexion and black eyes; the third finger of his right hand has been injured, so as to contract the muscles and leave it useless. He has some education, which he has acquired by hard study since he grew up to be his own master. His childhood was passed in ignorance, in the midst of the worst associations; and his own nature is almost utterly depraved. He is bad, from instinct, inheritance and bringing-up; and now, our blessed Redeemer, himself, would hardly find good enough in him to promise a hope of ultimate salvation. It is curious that he should ever have seen fit to study, so as to acquire even the smattering of knowledge which he has. He must have been led into it by some powerful passion. If I could decide what that passion was, I might have a key to unlock the gate into some other matters.”

I stared at the speaker in astonishment as he rapidly pronounced the above analysis of the personal appearance and character of the writer.

“Do you know him?” I asked.

“I do not know his name, and I have never met him. All the acquaintance I have with him, I have made through the medium of his chirography. It is sufficient for me; I can not mistake,”⁠—then, observing my puzzled and incredulous look, he smiled, as he added, “By the way, Richard, you are not aware of my accomplishment in the art of reading men and women from a specimen of their handwriting. It is one of my greatest aids in the profession to which I have devoted myself. The results I obtain sometimes astonish my friends. But, I assure you, there is nothing marvelous in them. Patient study and unwearied observation, with naturally quick perceptions, are the only witchcraft I use. With moderate natural abilities, I assert that any other person could equal me in this art (black art, some of my acquaintances regard it,) by giving the same time to it that a musician would to master an instrument.”

“I do not know about that, Mr. Burton. I guess it would take a mind of the singular composition of your own to make much out of an art with no rules and no foundations.”

“It has its rules, for me. But as proof is better than argument, show me any letters or scraps of writing you may have about you. I would like to satisfy you, before we proceed further, for I do not wish you to feel that you are working with a crackbrained individual, who is riding a hobby at your expense.”

I emptied my inside coat-pocket of its contents, among which were several letters⁠—one from my mother, a note from my uncle in Washington, an invitation from an old college-chum to attend his wedding in Boston, and two or three business epistles from casual acquaintances⁠—one, I remember, an entreaty from a young man to get him something to do in that magnetic center of all unemployed particles⁠—Washington. Of these, I revealed only to him the superscription and signature, with, perhaps, some unimportant sentence, which would, in no way, of itself, betray the characters or pursuits of the writers. I need not describe my surprise when, in each instance, he gave a careful and accurate description of the age, appearance, habits, profession and mental qualities of the person whose handwriting he had examined.

I could hardly credit my own senses; there must be some hocus-pocus about it, as in the tricks which jugglers play with cards. But my respect for the earnestness of my companion’s pursuits, and the indubitable nature of his proof, did not allow me to doubt any length of time. I became a believer in his facts, and I give these facts to my readers, at the risk of seeing the plain, sensible nose of the majority turned up with an expression of skepticism, mortifying to me. Mr. Burton’s character is a real one, and the truth of his wonderful achievements will become history.