The Dead Letter

we were set upon the accomplishment of our purposes by the willingness with which we gave time, money and mind to our object. I had first proposed the visit to California, avowing my intention to make it, when Mr. Burton had surprised me by offering to be my companion. This was a sacrifice which I could not have asked or expected of him; but he would not allow me to view it in that light, saying, with pleasant peremptoriness, that Lenore needed a sea-voyage; and he had been thinking of taking one on her account. He would make it a pleasure-tour, as well as one of business, “and then,” with a laugh which would have been satirical if it had not been so frank⁠—“he was afraid my mission would not be so successful, if undertaken alone.” And I had answered him that I realized my own inefficiency, as compared with his talent and experience⁠—all I had to encourage me was the devotion with which I undertook my work⁠—to that, alone, I trusted to insure me some reward. But if he really were willing to go with me, I should feel almost elated.

We were at Peekskill the next day in good season. We found the same postmaster in service who had been in the office at the time the dead-letter arrived there. When Mr. Burton⁠—I lounging carelessly in the background⁠—showed the envelope and inquired how it had occurred that it had been forwarded to the Department at this late hour, the official showed a little embarrassment, as inferring that he was about to be taken to task for a neglect of duty by some indignant individual.

“I will tell you how it happened, Mr. Owen,” said he, “if you’re the person addressed on that envelope. You never came for the letter, and before the expiration of the time required by law for forwarding it to Washington, it got slipped into a crack, and was never discovered till about a fortnight ago. You see, our place here wasn’t just the thing for an office; it never did suit, and this month, I finally had new boxes and shelves put in, and the room fixed up. In tearing down the old fixings, several letters were discovered which had slipped into a crack between the shelf and wall. This was one of them. I thought, ‘better late than never,’ though at first I had a mind to throw them into the stove. I hope, sir, the loss of the letter hasn’t put you to any very great inconvenience?”

“It was of some importance,” answered my companion, in a commonplace tone, “and I’m not sorry, even yet, to have recovered it, as it settles a matter I had been in doubt about. My man must have been very negligent; I certainly sent him for the letter. Don’t you remember a young man, a coachman, coming for my letters?”

“He never came but twice, to my knowledge,” answered the postmaster, giving a glance of curiosity at the speaker. “I wondered who it was they were for⁠—not being anyone that I knew⁠—and I know mostly everybody in the district. Traveling through our town, perhaps?”

“Yes, I was a stranger, who merely passed two or three times through your village, stopping on business. My usual address is New York. That coachman was hired at the next village to drive me about the country a few days. I have nearly forgotten him. I would like to call him to an account for some of his conduct which was not satisfactory. Can you describe his personal appearance?⁠—though, I suppose, you could not have taken any particular notice of him.”

“It was evening on both occasions of his calling. He was muffled up about the lower part of the face, and his cap pulled down. I couldn’t tell you a thing about him, indeed, except that he had black eyes. If I’m not mistaken, he had black or dark eyes. I think I remember of their looking at me very sharp through the window here. But it was evening, and I shouldn’t mind the circumstance at all if I had not wondered, at the time, who John Owen was. It’s likely the fellow was a rogue⁠—he looked kind of slippery.”

I, listening apart to the conversation, longed to ask if this muffled driver was small and slender, for I was thinking of a woman. While I was studying how to propose the question to Mr. Burton, he continued,

“A smallish fellow, if I remember rightly? I really wish I had his name.”

“Can’t say anything more about it,” was the reply of the postmaster. “I couldn’t answer if he were large or small, white or black, except as to his eyes, which were about all I saw of him. If you want to find out about him, why don’t you go to the livery-keeper who furnished your team to you? Of course, his employer could tell you all you want to know.”

“That would be the most sensible course,” answered the detective, with a laugh. “But, my good friend, it is considerably out of my way to go to S⁠⸺; and I must leave on the train up, in half an hour. After all, the matter is not of so much importance. I had a curiosity to learn what had kept the letter so long on its travels. Good day, sir.”

It never entered the official’s thoughts to inquire how we came in possession of a document which had not been returned from the Dead-Letter Department⁠—at least, not while we remained with him⁠—though he may afterward have puzzled his brains over the affair.

As we did not wish to arrive in Blankville until after dark, we had to leave the cars once again, and to get off at a little intermediate station, with half a dozen houses clustered about it; and here we whiled away, as we best could, several tedious hours, whose dreariness was only partially soothed by the influences of such a supper as could be obtained in the small