The Letter

It was late in the afternoon when Corbin found his way to Vane's door, where he was at once admitted by Dodd and carried through the kitchen and across a yard that had once been a garden, to the building at the back which was indifferently known as the laboratory or the annex. Vane had bought the old warehouse from the heirs of a celebrated bootmaker, and his own tastes being chemical rather than artisanal, he had changed the destination of the block at the bottom of the yard. It was the first time that the lawyer had been received in that part of his friend's premises; and he eyed the dingy, windowless structure with curiosity, and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness as he crossed the high open floor, once crowded with sewing machines and now lying gaunt and silent, the tables laden with glass apparatus, the floor strewn with crates and littered with packing straw, and the light falling dimly through the skylights. At the further end, a flight of stairs mounted to a door covered with red felt; and through this Corbin was at last received into Vane's office.

It was a large room fitted round with glass-fronted cabinets, furnished, among other things, with a full-length mirror on a stand and a business table, and looking out upon the lane by three dusty windows barred with steel. The gas fire burned in the grate; a lamp was set lighted on the shelf, for even in the building the fog began to lie thickly; and there, close up to the warmth, sat Dr. Vane, looking deathly sick. He did not rise to meet his visitor, but held out a cold hand and bade him welcome in a changed voice.

"And now," said Corbin, as soon as Dodd had left them, "you have heard the news?"

The doctor shuddered. "They were crying it on the radio," he said. "I heard them in my dining room."

"One word," said the lawyer. "Quill was my client, but so are you, and I want to know what I am doing. You have not been mad enough to hide this fellow?"

"Elias, I swear to God," cried the doctor, "I swear to God I will never set eyes on him again. I bind my honor to you that I am done with him in this world. It is all at an end. And indeed he does not want my help; you do not know him as I do; he is safe, he is quite safe; mark my words, he will never more be heard of."

The lawyer listened gloomily; he did not like his friend's feverish manner. "You seem pretty sure of him," said he; "and for your sake, I hope you may be right. If it came to a trial, your name might appear."

"I am quite sure of him," replied Vane. "I have grounds for certainty that I cannot share with anyone. But there is one thing on which you may advise me. I have, I have received a letter; and I am at a loss whether I should show it to the police. I should like to leave it in your hands, Elias; you would judge wisely, I am sure; I have so great a trust in you."

"You fear, I suppose, that it might lead to his detection?" asked the lawyer.

"No," said the other. "I cannot say that I care what becomes of Rook; I am quite done with him. I was thinking of my own character, which this hateful business has rather exposed."

Corbin ruminated awhile; he was surprised at his friend's selfishness, and yet relieved by it. "Well," said he, at last, "let me see the letter."

The letter was written in an odd, upright hand and signed "Silas Rook"; and it signified, briefly enough, that the writer's benefactor, Dr. Vane, whom he had long so unworthily repaid for a thousand generosities, need labor under no alarm for his safety, as he had means of escape on which he placed a sure dependence. The lawyer liked this letter well enough; it put a better color on the intimacy than he had looked for; and he blamed himself for some of his past suspicions.

"Have you the envelope?" he asked.

"I burned it," replied Vane, "before I thought what I was about. But it bore no postmark. The note was handed in at the laboratory door."

"Shall I keep this and sleep upon it?" asked Corbin.

"I wish you to judge for me entirely," was the reply. "I have lost confidence in myself."

"Well, I shall consider," returned the lawyer. "And now one word more: it was Rook who dictated the terms in your trust about that disappearance?"

The doctor seemed seized with a qualm of faintness; he shut his mouth tight and nodded.

"I knew it," said Corbin. "He meant to murder you. You had a fine escape."

"I have had what is far more to the purpose," returned the doctor, solemnly. "I have had a lesson. O God, Elias, what a lesson I have had!" And he covered his face for a moment with his hands.

On his way out, the lawyer stopped and had a word or two with Dodd. "By the bye," said he, "there was a letter handed in to-day: what was the messenger like?" But Dodd was positive nothing had come except by the mail; "and only bills by that," he added.

This news sent off the visitor with his fears renewed. Plainly the letter had come by the lane door; possibly, indeed, it had been written in the office; and if that were so, it must be differently judged, and handled with the more caution. The news, as he went, was being shouted along the streets by a man with a stack of papers: "Special edition. Shocking murder of a former senator." That was the funeral oration of one friend and client; and he could not help a certain apprehension lest the good name of another should be sucked down in the eddy of the scandal. It was, at least, a ticklish decision that he had to make; and self-reliant as he was by habit, he began to cherish a longing for advice. It was not to be had directly; but perhaps, he thought, it might be fished for.

Presently after, he sat on one side of his own hearth, with Dana Reyes, his head paralegal, upon the other, and midway between, at a nicely calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of a particular old wine that had long dwelt unsunned in the foundations of his house. Reyes was a small, precise woman of forty with spectacles and a memory for documents that Corbin had once described as the firm's only irreplaceable asset. She had often been on business to the doctor's; she knew Dodd; she could scarce have failed to hear of Rook's familiarity about the house; she might draw conclusions: was it not as well, then, that she should see a letter which put that mystery to rights? And above all, since Reyes, being a great student and critic of handwriting, would consider the step natural and obliging? The paralegal, besides, could scarce read so strange a document without dropping a remark; and by that remark Corbin might shape his future course.

"This is a sad business about Senator Quill," he said.

"Yes, sir, indeed. It has elicited a great deal of public feeling," returned Reyes. "The man, of course, was mad."

"I should like to hear your views on that," replied Corbin. "I have a document here in his handwriting; it is between ourselves, for I scarce know what to do about it; it is an ugly business at the best. But there it is; quite in your way: a murderer's autograph."

Reyes' eyes brightened, and she sat down at once and studied it with passion. "No, sir," she said. "Not mad; but it is an odd hand."

"And by all accounts a very odd writer," added the lawyer.

Just then the housekeeper entered with a note.

"Is that from Dr. Vane, sir?" inquired Reyes. "I thought I knew the writing. Anything private, Mr. Corbin?"

"Only an invitation to dinner. Why? Do you want to see it?"

"One moment. I thank you, sir." And the paralegal laid the two sheets of paper alongside and sedulously compared their contents. "Thank you, sir," she said at last, returning both. "It's a very interesting autograph."

There was a pause, during which Corbin struggled with himself. "Why did you compare them, Dana?" he inquired suddenly.

"Well, sir," returned the paralegal, "there's a rather singular resemblance; the two hands are in many points identical: only differently sloped." She held the two pages side by side a moment longer. "That letter is Dr. Vane's hand, Mr. Corbin. You knew it already, or you would not have shown it to me."

"Rather quaint," said Corbin.

"It is, as you say, rather quaint," returned Reyes.

"I wouldn't speak of this note, you know," said the master.

"No, sir," said the paralegal. "I understand."

But no sooner was Corbin alone that night than he locked the note into his safe, where it reposed from that time forward. "What!" he thought. "Roland Vane forge for a murderer!" And his blood ran cold in his veins.