“That’s the worst of it,” replied Reggie. “There wasn’t any name signed to it. The bounder who wrote it took good care of that.”
“But the handwriting!” cried Joe. “Perhaps I can recognize it. Where is the letter? Give it to me.”
“I haven’t got it with me,” Reggie explained. “It’s at my home in Goldsboro. The poor girl had to confide in somebody, so she sent it to me. And even if you had it, it wouldn’t tell you anything. It was in typewriting.”
“But the postmark!” ejaculated Joe. “Perhaps that would give a clue. Where did it come from?”
“There again we’re stumped,” responded Reggie. “It was postmarked Chicago. But that doesn’t do us any good, for there are two million people in Chicago.”
“Oh!” cried Joe, as he walked the floor and clenched his fists until the nails dug into his palms. “The beastliness of it! The cowardice of it! An anonymous letter! That such a villain should dare to torture the dearest girl in the world! But somewhere, somehow, I’ll hunt him out and thrash him soundly.”
“Don’t take the beastly thing so much to heart,” returned Reggie. “Of course it’s just a bluff by some bally bounder. Nobody ought to do anything with such a letter but tear it up and think no more about it. Some coward has done it that has a grudge against you, but he’d probably never have the nerve to carry out his threats.”
“It isn’t that I care about,” answered Joe. “I’ve always been able to take care of myself. I’d like nothing better than to have the rascal come out in the open and try to make his bluff good. But it’s Mabel I’m thinking about. You know a woman doesn’t dismiss those things as a man would. She worries her heart out about it. So that’s what has been weighing on her mind, poor, dear girl. Oh, if I only had my hands on the fellow that wrote that letter!”
And here he yielded again to a justified rage that was terrible to behold. It would have been a bad day for the rascally writer of that anonymous letter if he had suddenly stood revealed in the presence of Joe Matson!