Part 15 (2/2)

”Green,” I said, ”go to your hotel, pay your bill, and proceed to the Pattmore House. When you register your name, you must hail the clerk as an old acquaintance. This will be an easy matter, as hotel clerks are known by hundreds of people. Miller, you must be in the office at the same time, and you must both remain there until Pattmore puts his letter in the mail-box. Then, Green you must ask the clerk out to take a drink, and while you are gone, Miller must get possession of the letter. When you have secured it, come over to the Globe Hotel, where I am stopping.”

Green hurried off to the Clarendon House to get his carpet-bag, and Miller returned to the Pattmore House. I also sent Knox to watch Pattmore, and to follow him wherever he might go, until he retired for the night.

Soon after Miller reached the office, Pattmore came down stairs with a letter, which Miller carefully scrutinized, so as to be able to recognize it among a group of others.

”Has the mail for the West closed yet?” asked Pattmore.

”No,” replied the clerk, ”there is still about an hour to spare.”

Pattmore then dropped his letter into the mail-box and went out. At this moment Green stepped up to the desk, registered his name, and asked for a room. As the clerk was attending to his room and baggage, Green looked intently at him, as if trying to recall his name. Then, stepping forward, he said, cordially:

”Why, how are you? When did you come here? Let me see; the last time I saw you was at a hotel in Buffalo, wasn't it?”

This was a lucky guess, for the clerk replied:

”Havn't you seen me since then? Why, I left there over a year ago.”

”Well, I'm right glad to see you again,” said Green; ”step into the bar-room and take a 'smile' with me.”

”I can't very well leave the office just now,” said the clerk.

”Oh, yes you can,” said Green; ”your friend there will look after the office for a few minutes; come along.”

”Wait here until I come back, will you?” the clerk asked Miller, as he went off with Green.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”_As soon as the clerk had left the office, Miller quietly extracted Pattmore's letter from the box._”--Page 157.]

As soon as the clerk had left the office, Miller quietly extracted Pattmore's letter from the box. He had marked its appearance so well that he only needed one glance to identify it and he secured it so quickly that none of the crowd outside the desk noticed any movement on his part. In a few minutes the clerk returned to the desk, and Miller lounged out into the bar-room, whence he hurried over to meet me at the Globe Hotel. He there gave me the letter, which was addressed:

”Mrs. Annie Thayer, ”Chicago, ”Illinois.”

I carefully opened it by a simple process, which did not leave any evidence that the envelope had been tampered with. The letter began: ”My own dear Annie,” and the writer went on to caution Mrs. Thayer that she must not be alarmed at the news he was about to tell her. He said that some of his enemies had started a report that he had poisoned his late wife. He had no doubt that the Whig newspapers would spread and magnify these reports; still, he had no fears that they would be of any permanent injury to him, since his friend, coroner Van Valkenburgh, had agreed to hold an inquest, and there would be no difficulty in proving his innocence. He begged her to excuse the haste and brevity of the note, as he only had time to dash off a few lines to a.s.sure her that all was well, and to warn her not to become alarmed at anything she might see in the newspapers. The letter was signed: ”Ever your loving and devoted husband,

ALONZO PATTMORE.”

”Well, this is certainly strange,” I meditated. ”Her 'devoted _husband_,' eh? How can that be? He has had no opportunity to marry her since his wife died; hence, unless he committed bigamy, this t.i.tle of 'husband' is only a.s.sumed in antic.i.p.ation; yet Mrs. Thayer is, undoubtedly, beautiful and winning, and she may have induced him to ease her conscience by a form of marriage, even while his legal wife still lived. I must look into this more closely on my return to Chicago.”

I then re-sealed the letter and gave it back to Mr. Miller, with instructions to return to the hotel and keep a general watch on all that went on. He was not to mail the letter until early the next morning. As Miller went out Knox came in.

”Well, Knox, what news?” I asked.

”Mr. Pattmore has gone away in a hack,” replied Knox, breathlessly.

”What direction did he take?”

”He drove off at a rapid rate toward the southern part of the town, and I could not keep up, nor get on behind. I took the number of the hack, though,” answered Knox.

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