We picked up some of the old letters. They didn’t mean much: some old receipted bills; a pleading, desperate letter from some woman who wanted a man to return and marry her; another letter from some man who wanted to borrow money to tide him him over an emergency and written in the “dear-old-pal” vein.
Hale chuckled. “I like these things,” he said as he finished reading the letter. “Little cross-sections of life. Being perfect strangers to the transaction, we can examine the tone of that letter and see how badly that ‘dear-old-pal’ stuff is overdone. I wouldn’t trust that man as far as I could throw this desk with one hand.”
“Neither would I,” I told him. “I wonder what the newspaper clippings are.”
He pushed those to one side. “Those are meaningless. It’s the letters that count. Here’s one in feminine handwriting. Perhaps it’s another letter from the girl who wanted the man to marry her. I wonder how that came out.”
I picked up the old newspaper clippings, ran idly through them, said suddenly, “Wait a minute, Hale. We’ve struck something here.”
“What?”
“Pay dirt.”
“What do you mean?”
I said, “It may tie up with this thirty-eight caliber revolver.”
Hale dropped the letter he was reading, said excitedly, “How’s that?”