I looked in next morning, ostensibly to be shaved, but in reality to try to get sight of any letters which might have come addressed to the Professor’s care. That worthy forestalled me by gruffly volunteering the information that there were no letters; nor could I succeed in leading the conversation to the subject in which I was interested.
The morning after, however, I waited until I saw some one—who looked more like a customer in search of a barber than of a betting agent—enter the shop, and then followed him. He was at that moment being lathered for shaving, so after wishing the Professor good-morning, and remarking that I was in no hurry, I took a seat close to the mantel-shelf and pretended to read the “Daily Telegraph.” It was on this mantel-shelf, as I was aware, that the box containing the letters was kept, but on looking round I saw to my dismay that the mantel-shelf had been cleared for the display of a big coarsely-coloured picture of “The Great Fight between Slade and Scroggins.” The picture was labelled, “To be raffled for—the proceeds for the benefit of the widow.”
Whether this was intended as a delicate way of intimating that the conflict had proved fatal to one of the conflicting parties, or whether the widow in question was the relict of the artistic genius whose brain had conceived and whose hand had drawn the picture, I am unable to say, as particulars were not given. In regard to the details of the raffle, however, the promoters of the enterprise had condescended to be more explicit, as another label announced that the price of tickets was sixpence, and that they were “to be obtained of the Professor.” I was, however, more concerned at the moment in ascertaining what had become of the letters, so I scanned the room carefully, shifting meanwhile the outspread and interposed broadsheet of the “Daily Telegraph”—like a yachtsman setting his canvas close to the wind—so as to keep myself out of reach of the Professor’s too-inquisitive glance, and switching my eyes from object to object until they discovered the missing letters placed upon a rack which hung upon the wall near the window.
“It’s very dark here, or else my sight’s getting bad and I shall have to take to glasses. I’m hanged if I can read this small print,” I said aloud, standing up and moving towards the window, as if to get a better light. For half a minute I pretended to read, and then I leisurely shook out the newspaper to its fullest extent, in order to reverse the sheet, thus hiding myself completely from the Professor’s eye.
As I did so I took the opportunity to snatch the packet of letters from the rack. It was no easy matter to shuffle through them with one hand and without attracting attention, but I accomplished the task successfully, and not without result, for the bottom letter of the packet was for Mr. Henry Jeanes, and was in the handwriting of the barber at Cotley.
The reader will remember that I had prepared two envelopes bearing the Cotley postmark, and addressed to Jeanes in as close an imitation of the barber’s handwriting as possible. Into one of these envelopes I had that morning slipped a sheet of blank paper on which was pasted the newspaper cutting about the finding of the body of poor Green (I had a reason for doing so which will shortly transpire), and this envelope I was at that moment carrying just inside my sleeve. To abstract the original letter and replace it by the dummy was the work of a few seconds. It was well that I had come thus prepared, for in the next instant the Professor had snatched the packet from my hand, and was asking in a voice quivering with fury, “What the dickens I meant by such impudence?”
“What’s the excitement?” I said, as calmly and unconsciously as possible. “I was only looking if there was one for me? There’s no harm done.”
“Oh, isn’t there?” he said. “But there soon will be if yer get meddling ’ere again,” and with one swiftly-searching and darkly-suspicious glance at my face he fell to examining the letters, and, as I could see by the movement of his lips, counting them one by one to see that none was missing. My heart, I must confess, jumped a bit when he came to the forgery with which I had replaced the letter I had abstracted. But the result was apparently satisfactory, for he put the packet back upon the rack without further comment and took up the discarded shaving brush to continue his task. I did not feel at the best of ease when, after the customer had paid and departed, a surly “Now then!” summoned me to the operating chair, for it was not altogether reassuring to have a razor, in the grip of such a ruffian, at one’s throat. But, though the shave was accomplished with none too light a hand, and the scoundrel drew blood by the probably intentional and malicious way in which he rasped my somewhat tender skin, he did me no serious injury, and it was not long before I was back at the hotel and engaged in opening the abstracted letter.
There were two documents inside, the first of which was addressed to Jeanes in Mrs. Stanley Burgoyne’s handwriting, and ran as follows:—
“James,—We are glad to have your promise, and will carry out our part of the contract faithfully. We shall remain here as you direct until you telegraph the word ‘Come,’ when we shall start for England at once, and you can count on the yacht being at the place you mention within four days and ready to start again at a few hours’ notice. We shall be just off the boat-builder’s yard where our little yacht is laid up.