After having made the rounds of the clubs, the General, as usual, called on his solicitors—“Lawson and Son,” Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
“Have you heard anything of my son since I last wrote you?” he asked. The question was put after his other business had been transacted.
“No,” said Lawson the elder, to whom the inquiry was directed, Lawson the younger having gone out of the way.
“I have had a singular letter from him—there it is—you are at liberty to read it; you may put it among my papers. It’s a document that has a good deal grieved me. I don’t wish it lying in my own desk.”
Mr Lawson adjusted his spectacles; and perused the epistle that had been dictated by the brigand chief.
“This is strange, General! How did it reach you?” he asked on finishing. “There does not appear to be a postmark.”
“That is perhaps the strangest part of it; it came by hand, and was delivered to me in my own house.”
“By whom?”
“An odd-looking creature of a Jew, or Italian, or something of the kind. He proclaimed himself to be one of your own craft, Mr Lawson. A procuratore, he said; which I believe in the Italian lingo means an attorney, or solicitor.”
“What answer did you send your son?”