Owen began by watching Carrier Greene as he stood at his case sorting out the mail preparatory to starting out on the first delivery. He thought he might be able to see him withdraw and pocket the desired letters, and thereby get an important clew; but Greene made no such compromising move.
Owen maintained the same close watch when Gordon and Smithers were at the sorting cases, but these vigils were not productive of results. Either the letters which Coggswell wanted had not yet shown up, or the three carriers were too cautious to abstract them in the post office, preferring to wait until they had them in the bags and were out on the street, where they could get at them without being observed.
It was a headline on the front page of a morning newspaper which at length set Owen on the right track. This headline read: “Judge Lawrence to Fight Coggswell.—Former Supreme-court Judge Preparing to Wrest District Leadership from Boss at Coming Primaries. Coggswell Said to be Seriously Alarmed by Plan to Dethrone Him.”
Now, part of postal route forty-eight was a row of[{44}] brownstone private residences, and in one of these lived the Honorable Sugden Lawrence, former supreme-court judge, and now a lawyer of considerable prominence.
Owen decided that this was the man whose mail Boss Coggswell wished to intercept. In the first place, if, as the newspaper stated, Judge Lawrence was threatening to wrest the district leadership from its present incumbent, was it not exceedingly likely that the latter would be anxious to “get something on” his prospective opponent—some scandal which could be used to crush the enemy? With such an object in view, secret access to a man’s private correspondence would be a valuable factor. Many a family skeleton has been revealed by this means, many a public career has been ruined by means of a purloined letter.
In the second place—and this was, in his opinion, the strongest argument in favor of his theory—Owen happened to know that Henderson, the superintendent of Branch X Y, had a brother who was a clerk in Judge Lawrence’s office.
Owen had wondered until now why Boss Coggswell, in his desire to tamper with somebody’s mail, had not gone direct to Henderson, and had the thing done right in the post office, before the mail was handed to the carriers.
Surely, this would have been easier, and much more safe, than to deal with three subordinates. Several little incidents which had come under his observation gave Owen reason to believe that the superintendent of Branch X Y was not an overscrupulous official. He was a man who, in the administration of his office, “played politics” to an outrageous extent. Under ordinary circumstances, no doubt, he would not have hesitated to do Boss Coggswell this favor.
Why, then, had not the politician gone to Henderson instead of dealing with the carriers? Owen believed that he understood why, now. Coggswell was afraid that the superintendent would not stand for any monkeying with the mail of his brother’s employer. He might have warned the judge and caused trouble.
Convinced that his theory was correct, Owen went that evening to the residence of ex-Judge Lawrence. The latter, a keen, aggressive man, a few years past middle age, received the letter carrier in his library, and listened with great attention to what he had to say.