“I don’t suppose you or I can ever be said to be free from business,” he responded. “I was just growing weary of my bit of mental labor; your interruption is quite welcome, even if it is not ‘strictly social.’ You are anxious to make an informal inquiry about the search for the lost child, I presume?”
“I should be glad to hear anything upon that subject, but that is not my errand.”
“Ah!” The Chief rested his head upon his hand, and looked inquiringly at his vis-a-vis.
“I wanted,” said Mr. Follingsbee, taking out a huge pocket-book and deftly abstracting from it a folded envelope, “to show you a document, and ask you a question. This,” unfolding the envelope, “is the document.”
He smoothed it carefully and handed it to the other, who glanced over it blankly at first, then looked closer and with an expression of surprise.
“Did you write that letter?” queried Mr. Follingsbee.
“N-no.” He said it hesitatingly, and with the surprise fast turning to perplexity.
“Did you cause it to be written?”
The Chief spread the letter out before him on the desk, and slowly deciphered it.
“It’s my paper, and my envelope,” he said at last; “but it was never sent from this office.”