Mr. Gubb took the envelope and looked at the address. It was written in a hand evidently disguised by slanting the letters backward, and had been mailed at the Riverbank post-office.
“Hum!” said Mr. Gubb. “Lesson Nine of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency’s Correspondence School of Deteckating gives the full rules and regulations for to elucidate the mystery of threatening letters, scurrilous letters, et cetery. Now, is this a threatening letter or a scurrilous letter?”
“Well, it may be threatening, and it may not be threatening,” said Miss Scroggs. “If it is a threat, I must say I never heard of a threat just like it. And if it is scurrilous, I must say I never heard of anything that scurriled in the words used. Read it.”
Philo Gubb pulled the letter from the envelope and read it. It ran thus:—
Petunia:—
Open any book at page fourteen and read the first complete sentence at the top of the page. Go thou and do likewise.
For signature there was nothing but a waved line, drawn with a pen. In some respects it did resemble an angle-worm.
Philo Gubb frowned. “The advice of the inditer that wrote this letter seemingly appears to be sort of unexact,” he said. “’Most every book is apt to have a different lot of words at the top of page fourteen.”
“Just so!” said Miss Scroggs. “You may well say that. And say it to myself I did until I started to open a book. I went to the book-case and I took down my Bible and I turned to page fourteen.”
“As the writer beyond no doubt thought you would,” said P. Gubb.