When Alden was relieved from constraint, his face and figure settled into lines even more haggard and weary than before.
"I will give you the letters in the order of their dates," said he to Durgan.
The letters were carefully arranged. He had made notes concerning each on a slip of paper.
The first was written upon cheap notepaper in a cramped hand. Durgan, as he read, characterized the writer as a half-educated person, unaccustomed to social usage. It was dated from New York, and on a day about a month before the Claxton tragedy. It ran thus:
"Mrs. Durgan:
"Madame—I find the boarding-house to which you have been so good as to recommend me very comfortable. The parcel of comforts has reached and been duly received by me, for which also kindly receive my thanks. But I cannot forbear from reminding you that he who would seek spiritual knowledge and communion with those in a finer state of being than our own, must eschew such unnecessary gratification of the flesh. Again thanking you, dear madame,
"I remain, your obedient servant,
"John Charlton Beardsley."
Durgan turned this over and over. There was no postmark or stamp on the envelope. It had perhaps been returned by the bearer of the parcel referred to. The paper was not soiled, and the fragrance of his wife's own stationery adhered to it. She had evidently kept this paltry note among her own papers until recently—why? A fashionable woman must receive hundreds of such notes. Then, too, to keep what was of no use was not in accordance with his wife's business habits.
After this followed three more notes on the same paper. They also were brief and formal, giving thanks for favors, making or cancelling engagements to teach spiritual lore.
Then came one dated the day before the Claxton murder. Durgan felt a strange thrill as he read it:
"Madame: I feel compelled to visit Mr. Claxton at his own residence to-morrow. I feel that it is my duty to declare to him in the presence of Mrs. Claxton—or if he will not consent to this to warn Mr. Claxton of the risk to his soul which he encounters in his present meetings with——"
Here a line had been carefully erased. The next line began in the middle of a sentence.