“I do my duty. I gav to nobodday alse.” As he said this he left the packet on the bed, turned with a sad air, and walked out of the house as mysteriously as he had come.
Segwuna took up the envelope and examined the address. She knew that the Swede was a fisherman from the New Jersey coast. She had seen Roderick Barclugh walk to the sloop of war at Paules’ Hook with Major Andre, and she had seen them both leave General Clinton’s house together.
She found Roderick Barclugh in Philadelphia, when she returned from New York. He could not reach here by the sloop-of-war, so he must have landed on the coast and have been brought here by the fisherman. As these thoughts ran through her mind, she exclaimed:
“I have found it! The letter has traveled the same course, and John Anderson is John Andre.”
What this shrewd woman could fathom out of the statements in Barclugh’s delirium and what she had seen in New York, was that Arnold was to go over to the British. If Arnold got West Point, she could put two and two together and connect him with the twenty thousand pounds sterling and the General’s commission in the British army.
Segwuna reasoned to herself as she watched the sick man, and thought of what she ought to do:
“I have the clew to this poor man’s secret. His villainy must be stopped. I shall not leave one stone unturned to fathom his plans. This letter contains important facts. I shall deliver it when he recovers and watch my opportunity to learn its contents after he has broken the seal himself. Any other course would arouse his suspicions.”
So she took the letter and placed it in the drawer of an escritoire and resolved to deliver it as soon as Roderick Barclugh regained enough strength to read it.
When the episode of the letter delivered by the Swede had been well considered, Segwuna reasoned to herself again:
“I must not arouse the suspicions of Mr. Barclugh. If I let him go on he will weave a net to entrap himself.”