“Indeed! One would think, judging from the trouble you take about it, you attached some degree of credence to this fanciful story.”
“No. ’T is quite incredible. But a lawyer, you know, ought to be prepared on all points, however trivial, affecting his client’s interests.”
“Did you find anything to repay you for your search?”
“I will read you a passage from the letter; which letter, by the way, bears the initials A. L., undoubtedly, as I infer from the context, those of Arthur Laborie, whose authority no one in New Orleans will question. Here is the passage. The letter is in French. I will translate as I read:—
“‘Among the mortally wounded was a Mr. Berwick of New York, a gentleman of large wealth. They had pointed him out to me the day before, as, with a wife and infant child, the latter in the arms of a nurse, a colored woman, he stood on the hurricane-deck. The wife was killed, probably by the inhalation of steam. I saw and identified the body. The child, they said, was drowned; if so, the body was not recovered. A colored boy reported, that the day after the accident he had seen a white child and a mulatto woman, probably from the wreck, in the care of two white men; that the men told him the woman was crazy, and that the child belonged to a friend of theirs who had been drowned. I give this report, in the hope it may reach the eyes of some friend of the Berwicks, though it did not seem to make much impression on the officials who conducted the investigation. Probably they had good reason for dismissing the testimony; for Mr. Berwick died in the full belief that his wife and child had already passed away.’”
“I don’t see anything in all that,” said Ratcliff, impatiently.
“Perhaps not,” replied Semmes; “but an interested lawyer would see a good deal to set him thinking and inquiring. The letter, having been published in French, may not have met the eyes of any one to whom the information would have been suggestive.”
“Really, Semmes, you seem to be trying to make out a case.”
“The force of habit. ’T is second nature for a lawyer to revolve such questions. Many big cases are built on narrower foundations.”
“Psha! The incident might do very well in a romance, but ’t is not one of a kind known to actual life.”