In contemplating the situation, as I leisurely removed all surplus or superfluous covering, a small scrap of soiled and crumpled paper fell to the floor, and on picking it up, I was not a little surprised to see that it was an especial note. It was written in a feeble, but legible hand, and read as follows:—
“Nowhere,
“November, 1900.
“To whoever may find the within,—
“As I am breathing my last, and I am a little anxious to be off, I pray you to forward at once to Sir Marmaduke, Colonial Club, Whitehall, London.
“Leo Bergin.
“Richmond Virginia, late of ‘Symmes’ Hole.’”
This was another side of the character of Leo Bergin. Mentally, I was in what may, I think with some propriety, be termed a state of deeply interested confusion. I unrolled and exposed to view the whole package. It was voluminous. It was composed of some twenty writing tablets, each with a large number of thin sheets, foolscap size. These tablets were consecutively numbered, the pages were closely written on one side, the first few being in a round neat hand, the skill rather weakening as the work proceeded.
The Hon. Sir Joseph Ward, K.C.M.G., Colonial Secretary, Minister of Railways, Minister of Commerce and Industries, Postmaster-General, with Telegraphs, Minister in charge of Tourist and Health Resorts, and Minister of Public Health. Rather complex, but Sir Joseph’s abilities are as versatile as his duties are varied.
I was too eager for a general inspection to deliberately peruse any particular portion or feature of the whole, but there was a sufficient mass of what seemed by the painstaking methods to make a large volume.
But the mystery still deepened. Where, for what purpose, and under what circumstances, was the work done? There were here and there strange names of places, strange personages and strange events recorded. Was Leo Bergin mad? or was there, in fact, somewhere passing events that were indeed stranger to us than fiction?