Chapter 4. The Private Letter-Box

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_ Chapter IV. The Private Letter-Box

I had agreed to meet Esper Indiman at the Utinam and dine there. The weather had turned cold again, for it was the end of our changeable March, and the fireplace in the common room of the club was heaped high with hickory logs, a cheerful sight, were it not for that odious motto, "Non Possumus," graven over the mantel-shelf where it must inevitably meet every eye. Never could I read it without a tightening at my heartstrings; a potency of blighting evil seemed to lie in the very words.

There were but two or three club members in the room, one of them the young Mr. Sydenham, who had attracted my attention once or twice before by the infinite wretchedness of his face. A mere boy, too, hardly five-and-twenty at the most. He sat in a big chair, a magazine with its leaves uncut lying in his lap. For an hour or more he had not stirred; then he rang for a servant, directing him to inquire for any mail that might have come in the afternoon delivery. Nothing for Mr. Sydenham was the report, and again the young man relapsed into his melancholy musing. An hour later, and just after Indiman had joined me, Mr. Sydenham repeated his inquiry about his letters, receiving the same negative answer--"Nothing for Mr. Sydenham." Evidently the disappointment was not unexpected, but it was none the less a bitter one. With a sigh which he hardly attempted to stifle, the young man took up his uncut magazine and made a pretence at examining its contents; I watched him with a lively but silent pity; any active sympathy might have seemed obtrusive.

A servant stood at the young man's elbow holding a salver on which lay a missive of some sort, a telegraphic message, to judge by the flimsy, buff envelope.

"Telegram, sir," said the man, at length. "For Mr. Sydenham; yes, sir. Will you sign for it?"

The boy turned slowly, and there was a shaking horror in his eyes that made me feel sick. He signed the book and took the message from the salver, apparently acting against a sense of the most intense repulsion, and for all that unable to help himself. The message once in his hand he did not seem to concern himself overmuch with its possible import; presently the envelope fell from his inert fingers and fluttered down at Indiman's feet. The latter picked it up and handed it to the young man, who thanked him in a voice barely audible.

"The man is waiting to see if there is any answer," suggested Indiman, quietly.

Mr. Sydenham started, colored deeply, and tore open the envelope. He read the message through carefully, then perused it for a second and a third time, and sat motionless, staring into vacancy.

Indiman leaned forward. "Well?" he said, sharply.

The young man looked up; the cool confidence of Indiman's gaze seemed suddenly to inspire in him a feeling of trust; he took the risk; he handed the message to Indiman. "What answer would you advise me to give?" he said.

The message contained these words:

"The Empire State express passes the Fifty-third Street bridge at 8.35 o'clock to-morrow morning. You can drop from the guard-rail. Is life more than honor? Answer. V. S."

Indiman looked at me, then he rose and took Mr. Sydenham by the arm. "Let us go into the card-room," he said, quietly. "Thorp, will you come?"

The young man's story was very simple. He had held until lately the position of cashier in the firm of Sandford & Sands, stock-brokers. On January 15th a shortage of fifty thousand dollars had been discovered in his books. Mr. Sandford being an intimate friend of the elder Sydenham had declined to prosecute. That was all.

"Let us proceed frankly, Mr. Sydenham," said Indiman. "Did you take the money?"

"I am beginning to think so," answered the young man, dully.

"Come," said Indiman, encouragingly, "that does not sound like a confession of guilt. Don't you know?"

Mr. Sydenham shook his head. "I can't tell you," he answered, hopelessly. "My accounts were in perfect order up to January 10th, when I discovered that our bank balance showed a discrepancy of fifty thousand dollars. I covered it over for the time, hoping to find the source of the error. Five days later I told Mr. Sandford. The money was gone, and that was all that I could say."

"Let us recall the events of January 9th. Did you make your regular deposit that day, and where?"

"We keep our account at the Bank of Commerce. But that afternoon I overlooked a package of bills in large denominations. I sent another messenger over to the bank, but it was after three o'clock and the deposit was refused. The boy brought the money back to me--the package contained fifty thousand dollars."

"And then?"

"I don't know. I might have locked it up in our own safe or carried it home with me or pitched it out of the window. It is all a blank."

"Did you stay at the office later than usual that day?"

"Yes; I was busy with some of Mr. Sandford's private affairs, and that delayed me until all the others had gone. I left about five o'clock."

"And now who is V. S.? Pardon me, but the question is necessary."

"Miss Valentine Sandford--Mr. Sandford's daughter. I was engaged to be married to her."

"Since when?"

"I had proposed and was waiting for my answer. Then that very day she sent me a telegram. It contained the single word 'yes' and was signed by her initials. It came at the same moment that the messenger brought back the money from the bank."

"And it is the same V. S, who sends this message?" asked Indiman, smoothing out the telegraph blank which he held in his hand.

The young man took a bundle of papers from his breast-pocket. They were all telegraphic messages, and each was a suggestion towards self-destruction in one form or another. "Suicide's corner" at Niagara, poison, the rope--all couched in language of devilish ingenuity in innuendo, and ending in every instance with the expression, "Is life more than honor? Answer. V. S."

"I have had at least one every day," said the young man. "Sometimes two or three. Generally in the morning, but they also come at any hour."

"And Miss Sandford?"

"I wrote and told her of my terrible misfortune, released her from the unannounced engagement, and begged her to believe in me until I could clear myself. I have not seen her since the fatal day of the 15th of January."

"And you have received from her only these--these messages?"

"That is all."

"And you think they come from her?"

"No; or I should have killed myself long ago. But there are times when I have to take a tight hold on myself; to-day is one of them," he added, very simply.

"Mr. Sydenham," said Indiman, solemnly, "I now know you to be an innocent man. Had it been otherwise you would long since have succumbed under this mysterious and terrible pressure."

"I am innocent!" repeated the young man. "But to prove it?"

"It shall be proved."

"The money?"

"It shall be found."

"Through whom?"

"Yourself. A simple lapse of memory is the undoubted explanation. The gap must be bridged, that is all. Will you put yourself in my hands?"

"Unreservedly."

"Good! I desire then that you should return to your home and wait there until you hear from me. The address--thank you. You had better leave the club at once; this atmosphere is not the most wholesome for a man in your position."

Mr. Sydenham proved most amenable to all of Indiman's suggestions, and we did not lose sight of him until he was finally on his way uptown in a Columbus Avenue car.

"A good subject," remarked Indiman, "and it should be comparatively easy to get at the submerged consciousness in his case. A simple reconstruction of the scene should be sufficient."

"You don't think the money was stolen, then?"

"Not at all. It will be found in some safe place, its disposal being an act of Sydenham's subliminal personality, of which his normal consciousness knows nothing."

"But why--"

"The man was NOT himself that ninth day of January. He had received a tremendous impression in the receipt of that message from Miss Sandford. He was an accepted lover, and the consciousness, for the time being, swept him off his feet. He was doing his work mechanically, and it did not matter so long as it was only routine. Then came the emergency, and, objectively, he was unable to cope with it. The subjective personality took command and did the right thing, for Sydenham is an honest man. What action the subliminal self actually took is known only to itself, and no effort of Sydenham's normal memory will suffice to recall it. But there are other means of getting at the truth. The most practical is to reproduce the situation as exactly as possible. Given the same first causes and we get the identical results. First, now to see Mr. Sandford, with whom luckily I have some acquaintance."

It was like the playing of a game, the scene in Sandford & Sand's office that following afternoon. The staff of clerks had been sent home as soon as possible after three o'clock, all save the young man who acted as bank messenger. The calendar on the wall had been set back to January 9th, and the HERALD of that date lay half-opened on Sydenham's old desk. It will be remembered that Sydenham had been detained on some of Mr. Sandford's private business, and it was perfectly feasible to reconstruct its details. Mr. Sandford had been coached in his part by Indiman, and the preparations for the experiment being finally perfected, Sydenham was called in. He appeared, dressed in the same clothes that he had worn the month before, looking a little pale, indeed, but resolute and collected.

"Mr. Sydenham," said Indiman, keeping his eyes fixed on the young man's face, "you will observe that this is January 9, 1903. Kindly seat yourself at your desk, and remain there as passive as possible. Wait now until we withdraw."

Through the half-opened door of Mr. Sandford's private office we could see distinctly all that passed. Sydenham sat motionless at his desk; Alden, the bank messenger, was within call in the outer office. The hands of the clock, which had been set back, pointed to five minutes of three.

A telegraph delivery boy entered and handed Sydenham a yellow envelope. He signed for it and the boy withdrew. He opened it, and instead of a written message drew out a fresh sprig of heliotrope. Motionless and scarcely breathing, he sat and gazed at it as though he could never fill his eyes with the sight.

"Now," said Indiman, pushing Mr. Sandford into the room where the young cashier sat.

The conversation was a brief one, relating to the papers that Mr. Sandford carried in his hand.

"Leave them on your way up-town in my box at the safe-deposit company," concluded Mr. Sandford. Then he took his hat and went out.

Sydenham swung back to his desk; the HERALD lying there was in his way, and he tossed it onto the floor. Underneath lay a package of bills of large denominations.

The cashier acted quickly. "Alden!" he called, and the messenger came running in.

"I overlooked this package," said Sydenham; "it contains fifty thousand dollars. Do you think you can get to the bank with it? You have a minute and a half."

The messenger seized the package and dashed away. Sydenham looked again at the sprig of heliotrope; he pressed it passionately to his lips. Then carefully placing it in his pocket-book, he began an examination of the papers left by Mr. Sandford. The clock struck three.

The clerk Alden re-entered. "They wouldn't take it," he said, and handed the package of bills to Sydenham.

"Oh, very well," said the cashier, absently, "I'll take care of it. That's all, Alden; you can go."

For an hour or more Sydenham worked steadily. Then, gathering the papers together, he rose, took off his office-coat, and began making preparations to depart. Once he came into Mr. Sandford's private office, where we were sitting, but apparently he did not notice our presence. Indiman gripped my hand hard. "Going splendidly," he whispered.

The cashier put on his hat and top-coat. The legal papers were carefully stowed in an inside pocket, and he was about to close down his roll-top desk when the package of bank-bills met his eye. He frowned perplexedly; then picking up the bundle he dropped it into the same pocket with the papers belonging to Mr. Sandford. He went out, closing the door behind him.

We followed as quickly as we could, but this time luck was against us--Sydenham had disappeared.

"To the safe-deposit company," said Indiman, and we jumped into a hansom. Mr. Sandford was there, and we waited impatiently for Sydenham's appearance; it was the only chance of again picking up the lost trail.

There he came, walking slowly up Nassau Street, his manner a trifle preoccupied and his eyes bent on the pavement. Opposite the safe-deposit company he stopped and thrust his hand into a waistcoat-pocket. He took it away empty and a terrible change came over his face. With a quick movement he drew out the bundle of bank-notes and regarded it fixedly. A cry burst from his lips; he reeled and fell, the money still clutched in his hand.

Instantly we were at his side. A coach was at hand, and we got him into it and directed the driver to proceed to Indiman's lodgings. The attack had been but a momentary one, and Sydenham revived as we turned out of Park Row. He looked at us, then at the money in his hand.

"It has failed," he said, brokenly, and none of us could say a word. "I came to myself," continued Sydenham, with forced calmness, "there in Nassau Street; it was as though I had awakened from a dream. The money--it was in my hand. I stood before the world, a self-convicted thief. I thank you; you have done your best, but it is useless." He passed the money to Mr. Sandford; mechanically his hand went to the inside breast-pocket of his over-coat; he drew out the package of legal papers bearing Mr. Sandford's name. "But--but," he stammered, "I don't understand--I left these in your box at the safe-deposit company."

"To be sure you did," answered Indiman, coolly. He pulled the check-cord. "Drive back to the safe deposit," he called to the hackman.

"Now, then," said Indiman, in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone, "will you tell me the conditions under which you had access to Mr. Sandford's vault. Of course your name as an authorized agent of Mr. Sandford was on the company's books. You had your pass-key, of course?"

"No," said Mr. Sandford. "There was but one pass-key, and that I kept myself. When Mr. Sydenham had any business to do for me at the safe-deposit vaults I would let him have the key temporarily."

"You gave it to him on that particular day, the 9th of January?" continued Indiman.

"Yes."

"Where is it now?" almost shouted Indiman.

"Here," said Mr. Sandford, in surprise. "On my key-ring."

"Exactly. There is the broken link in our psychological chain. When Mr. Sydenham felt for the pass-key, which should have been in his pocket, he discovered that it was missing. Instantly the continuity of events was broken, the subliminal personality was again submerged, and Mr. Sydenham's normal consciousness was re-established. Mr. Sandford, you are perfectly aware of the fact that these legal papers were properly deposited in your vault, and that the pass-key was returned to you by Mr. Sydenham on the morning of January 10th. Gentlemen, it is evident that we shall find the original fifty thousand dollars lying in Mr. Sandford's strong-box, where it was left by Mr. Sydenham on the afternoon of January 9th."

I confess that I was mightily excited when the moment came to test the correctness of Indiman's deductions. We were shown into a private room, and, under Mr. Sandford's eye, the treasure-box belonging to him was carried in and opened. Almost at the bottom lay a long, brown Manila envelope fastened with three red rubber bands. It contained fifty one-thousand-dollar bills.

"I noticed that envelope several times," explained Mr. Sandford, "but supposed it contained some mining stock. You see here is another envelope identical in appearance and lying directly beneath it. Mr. Sydenham never suggested even that he might have left the missing money in my safe-deposit vault."

"It never occurred to me that I could have done so," said Sydenham. "I remembered making a deposit of the papers--but the money, no, I had no recollection of having seen or touched it from the moment that Alden brought it back from the bank and laid it on my desk."

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Sandford, "I am indebted to you for much more than the mere recovery of the money. But we will speak of that again. Where can I put you down? Mr. Sydenham I shall carry off to my house; I want to have a talk with him."

But Indiman declined to re-enter the coach, pleading some further business down-town, and, of course, I remained with him. The carriage was about to drive off when Indiman put up his hand.

"How stupid of me!" he exclaimed. "I had almost forgotten." He took from the pocket of his overcoat a rather bulky package and handed it to young Mr. Sydenham. "They'll explain themselves," he said, smiling. The coach rolled away.

"The missing letters from V. S.," said Indiman, in answer to my look of inquiry. "An average of two a day, and all addressed to him at the Utinam. Well, what was the poor girl to do? The young fool had changed his lodgings and obliterated every possible trace of his whereabouts. All Miss Sandford had to go on was the bare intimation that he could be addressed at the Utinam Club. She might as well have posted her communications in the North River."

"I don't follow you."

"Two days ago I put a dummy letter addressed to Sydenham in his private lock-box at the Utinam. I had promised, you know, to send him on his mail if he would keep away from the club, and accordingly I had the key of the letter-box in my possession. Ten minutes later I went again to the box and it was empty--that is, you could see distinctly from one end of the box to the other, and it was absolutely bare."

"A duplicate key, of course."

"Not at all. It is only a stupid person who descends to crime--except as a last resort."

"Well, then?"

"Did you ever attend any of the exhibitions at the old Egyptian Hall? One of the favorite illusions was the trick cabinet in which the performer seated himself in full view of the spectators. The doors would be closed for an instant, and then, when reopened, the man had disappeared. The full interior of the cabinet was plainly visible; it stood on legs, which precluded the idea of a trap-door, and it was incontestably shown that egress from the back, top, or sides was impossible."

"Yet the performer was gone?"

"I said that the cabinet appeared to be empty--quite another thing."

"Go on."

"It was a simple arrangement of plate-glass mirrors fitting closely at the sides and backed by the distinctive pattern of wall-paper with which the rest of the cabinet was covered. Immediately that the doors were closed, the performer drew these false sides outward, so that they met the centre post of the doors at an acute angle. The true side walls were thereby exposed, and, of course, they were papered to correspond with the rest of the interior. Their reflection was doubled in the mirrors, making it appear to the observer that the whole cabinet was open to his vision. The truth was that he saw only half of it, the performer being concealed behind the mirrors. The only possible point at which the illusion could be detected was the angle where the mirrors joined, and this was masked by the centre post at which the double doors met. To conclude the trick, the doors were again closed, the performer swung the mirrors back into place, and, presto! he was back in the cabinet, smiling genially at the gaping crowd."

"Then you think--"

"I know. Lock-box No. 82 was constructed on the same principle in miniature, the letter-slit being placed in such a position that anything deposited in the box fell behind the mirrors, the whole interior remaining apparently visible through the glass front, and presumably empty. The owner of the box would naturally glance into it before actually using his pass-key. Obviously, it were a waste of time to go through the form of opening an EMPTY box, and so poor Sydenham never got any of the letters that were daily deposited there, for the receptacle is a large one and the secret place behind the mirrors was almost full. The action of unlocking the box operated upon an interior mechanism that swung back the mirrors at the same instant that the door was pulled open. After seeing my dummy disappear, I tried the experiment, and was amply rewarded.

"There isn't much more to tell. When I saw the letters lying there I knew that it was all right so far as the girl was concerned. I had only to acquaint Miss Sandford with the circumstances in the case to secure her further co-operation, for, of course, she had never ceased to believe in her lover. She prepared and sent the message which you saw delivered to Sydenham in Sandford's office this afternoon.

"But it was not the same as the one received by him on the actual January 9th. That contained a word, 'yes,' and was signed by her initials; this second one consisted simply of a sprig of heliotrope."

"Do you understand the language of flowers? The heliotrope means, 'Je t'adore,' and Sydenham understood it instantly, as you saw."

"Yes; but why--"

"To repeat the original message would not have impressed him as I wished; it would simply have seemed part of the illusion which he knew perfectly well we were endeavoring to create. The problem was to suddenly startle him by a real communication from V. S., and, above all, to have it of such a nature as to convince him that the cloud between them had finally lifted. Now, without trust and confidence, true love is impossible. The message of the sprig of heliotrope told him all that he had been hungering and longing to hear throughout these terrible two months; the shock was sufficient to drive the normal consciousness from its seat and permit the subliminal self to take control. In other words, it practically put him back in the identical mental mood of the afternoon of January 9th, and that was the crucial point of the whole experiment. Anything more?"

"Who sent the false telegrams?"

"Of course, you would ask that. I don't know."

"Such a monstrous wickedness! It is inconceivable."

"Yes, unless we admit the existence of a spirit of pure malevolence seeking to drive an innocent man to self-destruction for no other motive than that of doing evil for evil's sake. That such an intelligence has been active in this case is certain; or how explain the cheat of the letter-box, a necessary factor in the problem, as you will admit?"

"But you don't know."

"Not yet," answered my friend Indiman.

We dined down-town that evening, and it was about nine o'clock when we called a hackney-coach and started homeward. As we drove on up the Bowery an illuminated transparency caught our eyes.

"'Fair and Bazaar,'" read Indiman. "'Benefit of the United House-smiths' Benevolent Association.' What is a house-smith, Thorp? Evidently we will have to go and find out for ourselves." He pulled the check-cord and gave the driver the new direction. Pure foolishness, of course, but Indiman was not to be put out of his humor.

Up one flight of stairs to a large, low-ceilinged hall that was jammed to suffocation. A score of gayly trimmed booths wherein were displayed various articles of feminine fallals and cheap bric-a-brac, each presided over by a lady house-smith. "Or should it be house-smithess?" asked Indiman. "Hullo! What's this?"

Behind a long counter covered with red-paper muslin sat a dozen young women of more or less pronounced personal charms, and a huge placard announced that, kisses were on sale at the uniform price of fifty cents. "Take your own choice." Smaller cards bore the various cognomens assumed for the occasion by the fair venders of osculatory delights. "Cleopatra," "The Fair One with Golden Locks," "Kathleen Mavourneen," "Pocahontas," or more simply, albeit not less mysteriously, "Miss A. B.," or "Mademoiselle X." Of course, each had dressed the part as nearly as might be, and the exhibition was certainly attractive to the masculine eye. In questionable taste, no doubt, but one does not stand upon trifles when it is all for sweet charity's sake.

"My dear Thorp," said Indiman, with the utmost gravity, "have you half a dollar in your pocket? Then come with me," and forthwith we jammed and corkscrewed our way through the crowd until we reached the long counter covered with red-paper muslin. _

Read next: Chapter 5. The Ninety-and-nine Kisses

Read previous: Chapter 3. House in the Middle of the Block

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