“You might read something to him,” said Katherine desperately, after several minutes of hard thinking had sprouted no ideas. “Read him ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles.’ That will gently divert his thoughts. It’s absolutely the biggest thriller that was ever written. Judge Dalrymple bought it on the train once, when he was going from Milwaukee to some little town in Wisconsin, and he got so absorbed in it that he never came to until the train pulled into St. Paul, hundreds of miles beyond his stop. You might read him one chapter a day and he won’t think of dying before he knows how it is coming out. It’ll be a sort of Arabian Nights performance.”
“Where will I get the book?” asked Migwan.
“I saw it in one of the cases in the library,” replied Katherine. “It must have belonged to Mr. Carver’s housekeeper, for I’m sure he never owned such a book.”
“All right,” said Migwan, “let’s take it out and tell Justice to read it to Hercules.”
Katherine found the book on the library shelf and opened it to a picture she wanted the girls to see. As she turned the pages a letter fell out and dropped to the floor. She stopped to pick it up, and could not help reading the address. It was addressed to Mr. Jasper Carver, Esquire, and had never been opened.
“Here’s a letter for Uncle Jasper that must have come after he died,” said Katherine, “for it hasn’t been opened.” Nyoda came into the room just then, and she handed it to her.
Nyoda looked at the date. “April 12, 1917,” she read. “That’s the very day Uncle Jasper died. This letter must have come while he lay dead in the house here, and in the confusion somebody put it into that book, where it has stayed all this while. I opened all the other letters that came after his death and took care of the matters they concerned. I hope this isn’t a bill—the creditor will think we are poor business people not to reply.” She reached for the letter opener and slit the envelope.
Inside was a letter, not a bill, written in a cramped, shaky hand upon coarse notepaper. It was dated from a small town in New York State. Nyoda carried it over to the window and read it:
“Mr. Jasper Carver, Esq.,
Oakwood, Pa.